Diabolik and Satanik sounds at The Swan

We be revving them engines, tunin them tubes, alignin our strings and gearing up to get giggin again.

First offerin is up at the Swan in Thame. Friday 5th September. Last time we were there we broke all the lights in basement from all the dancin going on. The floor was dilating in waves of sonic salvation. So yeah baby, we gonna play it again.

Cheap knock off nightmares

Last night I woke up about 5am to my phone buzzing, mightily confused. A little disorientated and blurry. The phone shook me out of a nightmare.

Now the weird thing is there was this bit where I put an old rusty key in a oak door and the whole wall just melted into black ooze. Standard nightmare stuff.

But this is what confused me. The black ooze kind of looked completely CGI, a bit fake, a bit plastacine. It never struck me that you could get cheap CGI effects in dreams. It kind of puzzles me for some reason I don't get.

The reason is probably boring but the question is kind a curious.

Resonance FM

Its kind a normal for me to find out about things years after they're going on. Resonance FM is typical of this. But anyone I walk up to and go, you gotta here this radio thang, they kind a go 'huh?' too.

To be honest I had heard of it before but I've always tuned in during the day and all I ever seem to hear was people talking about their day at work, social workers and that kind thing. It didn't tickle me.

But recently I been tuning in on me journey home each day for about 20 minutes before it loses its signal to fricking BBC Berkshire playing the Logical Song. And each day I curse the BBC and Supertramp.

So what is it? Well I don't know how to sum it up, in fact I won't. All I can do is list the variety of stuff I've heard over the last couple of months:

. Gramophone recordings of the wind blowing from 1928
. A Jazz band tuning up for half an hour
. Mike Mignola talking about Hellboy
. Paul from Artrocker playing arty rocky things
. 1960s Tape Club Recordings of Cricket matches and fetes and things
. Oscar Z. Acosta and poetry
. Discussion about the type faces used in comics
. lots and lots of strange noises
. No fricking adverts

I am in love. I am happier than the Joker testing out a new pencil sharpener.

Check it here - Resonance FM

Subsiren Summer Party - Next Friday

Bootstrap aren't giggin at the moment but I'm sure that won't stop ya going out. We're kind a busy organizing tours and other funky stuff that I can't really talk about yet.

Anyway the Subsiren Summer Party is on and its on next friday at the Hop Pole. The new home of sanitary insanity.

That be Aylesbury. That be August 22nd. That be a Friday.

The chosen bands all rejoice in that summer love sensation of crazy mondo sounds.

SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT - Oxford noisy maestros

THE ALPHA MALES - Aylesbury Freak Council

THE SIMPSON BROTHERS - Leighton Buzzard Instrument creators

+ SubSiren DJ's and Friends

To say the night's line-up was alternative would be to say there was an alternative. This is alt-Aylesbury, there is no alternative.

Ze Bizzarro Psychadelic Cinema Experience. Part 1

I dig a lot of asian cinema but I kind of get bored quick. What gets released over here is a small percentage of what exists. Mostly what makes it over is genre stuff:

horror stuff (girl gets spooked and wanders about),

martial arts stuff (guy beats up guy with unusual object),

arty stuff (kids wander about melancholic for two hours and die)
gorey stuff (girl gets splattered with blood)

All this stuff is good and healthy but it gets a bit dull after a while. You need to dig deep into them kimono pockets to find the goodies. Over the past year I've seen a few brilliant ones which are interstellar and bizarro:

Death Note 1 & 2 - Is more like the old film The Sting than the Ring. Misleading title but damn fine story.

I'm a cyborg, but thats ok - Asylum romcom by the guy who did Oldboy (Chan Wook Park). Just unbelievebly ruthlessly beautiful and romantic. Its a weird kind of love story, but because its directed by Chan Wook Park, there's this feeling underneath like it going to turn nasty. It doesn't.

The Great Yokai War - Family film by the guy who did Ichi the Killer (Takashi Miike). There's kind of a menacing Jim Henson muppet show feel about this one and its probably not for everyone, but I dig it.

Now all these film are weird, wonderful, bizzaro and fresh. But they haven't got a heap of gore, horror or judo chops so you might not hear about them. A lot of directors in the east are getting bored of doing the same old genre stuff, but don't wanna lose the genre fans. So they're going bizarro and stylish and I dig it. All these films above when released in their own country were huge (like 4 weddings and a funeral huge) but they don't get a lot of foreign press, so you don't here about them much unless they make it to cannes or something.

So thats Part 1, a couple I've seen. Part 2 is a bunch I'm gonna check out.

Bootplayer

Forget all those other media players. You don't need'em when you got a bootplayer.

I don't understand the BBC. I thought I did

I never wanted to rant on me blog, just wanted to kind be positive but... I just don't understand what the BBC are up to. I keep coming across it and now its getting blatant.

I just want to post this up because if you know what they're doing. It doesn't manipulate you quite as much. It could be called propaganda, but in whose name? I don't know.

Case in point:


So someone was telling me I got to look at the olympics opening ceremony. There's crazy lights, people running round globes, fireworks, giant scrolls. Some cool stuff.

So I head over to the BBC to have a gander.

To the top news story:

Spectacular opening for Olympics

I was kind of hoping they'd describe this huge firework, globey scroll light show thang. Maybe post a video, or some pictures. Like it says in the title 'Spectacular opening for Olympics!'

But if you click on it you get a couple of lines saying:

China has presented a dramatic display of fireworks, music and dancing to mark the opening of its Beijing Olympics.

And a couple more lines. And thats it.

Then you get a looooooong article about bomb threats, pollution, protests, troops, police. ANd it just goes on and on and on and on. Yeah its all true, scary, and China is very naughty. But....

If the story was called 'Controversey over Olympics'. That'd be fine. But the story is called ''Spectacular opening for Olympics'.

Thats manipulation and I don't like it.

English Rebels

I got a soft spot fer Chumbawumba. Their very name seems to irritatate people. I got a soft spot for many unloved people who kinda know their stuff, justify their existence but were just born not to get invited onto the culture show. People like Chumbawumba, John Gaunt, Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Clarkson, Chris Eubank and others you won't usually find in the same sentence. It just makes me smile seeing them all lumped together as some sort of movement. All these people kinda shape the world, create debate, make you think a little harder but if there is a culture party invitation list their names not down.

Anyway, I came across Chumbawumba's new album cover and dug it. If it had been Graham Coxon, I'm sure it would be on the Culture Show. But its not, its Chumbawumba, so it'll probably be sneered at or flat ignored. I'm sure its pretty good as well. When they wanna be, they can write some delicious stuff. 'The Day the Nazi Died' is one of them, hear it live, acapella, harmonized and ya jaw drops.

But they say their anarchists and anyone who says they're an anarchist is kinda seen as a bit silly. I got arrested once and it was late, I was tired and the copper sneered to me, "Are you an anarchist?" I thought about it wondering where this might lead and said "Yeah, I suppose so." He said I didn't know the meaning of the word.

Having read books and stuff, I knew well what it truly meant but what I didn't realise is what it associates you with. That I didn't sign up for, I don't wanna be the member of some club. Chumbawumba did sign up and I think thats why they were often seen as silly. I think that view is changing though which is funky.