This week I have been mostly listening to:
Low
The Great Destroyer
The Fall
This Nation’s Saving Grace
Kasabian
Club Foot
The Shins
Know Your Onion!
Julian Cope
5 O’Clock World E.P.
Julian Cope
Fear Loves This Place E.P. (Disc 1)
Julian Cope
Fear Loves This Place E.P. (Disc 2)
Black Flag
Nervous Breakdown
Adam and the Ants
A.N.T.S. (Flexi Single)
Carbon/Silicon
The Grand Delusion
Aztec Camera
Oblivious
This week I have mostly been listening to:
We Are Scientists
Crap Attack
Six By Seven
Catch The Rain
The Shins
So Says I
Velocity Girl
Sorry Again EP
Velocity Girl
Gilded Stars And Zealous Hearts
Melody Maker: New Kids On The Rock
On my walk home last night I had an experience that I have never had before. As I was striding down the Mile End Road, just after the junction with Cambridge Heath Road, I noticed something on the floor. As I got closer I realised it was a wad of money. There were £20s and £10s all rolled up together. I could hear angels singing ‘Hallelujah’ as the sun appeared through a crack in the clouds.
Here was my opportunity to bend down and scoop up the cash, all in one swift, elegant and covert movement. What did I do? I walked on by, leaving the gift from heaven for some mental alcoholic drug addict. Sometimes, I just do not understand my own actions.
As I approached my home I was very much cheered by the sight of four frightening looking black gentlemen. They were all sat on my front step, listening to tinny hip-hop through a mobile phone and smoking drugs. I politely asked if I could pass and enter the building in which I live, to which they provided me with a tirade of unintelligible verbal abuse and spitting.
Hopefully, they found the money for they are far more deserving than I or indeed anybody.
This week I have mainly been listening to:
We Are Scientists
Brain Thrust Mastery
PJ Harvey & John Parish
Black Hearted Love
Kaiser Chiefs
The Angry Mob
Tiger
Shining In The Wood
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Barbed Wire Kisses
Walking down The Cut the other day I saw what appeared to be a mental person swerving straight for me, as they do. Upon closer inspection I realised it was my friend and sexy man actor Jude Law.
He was hardly recognisable, with wild hair, dirty and crumpled clothes and mad bloodshot eyes. He was obviously full of nervous energy, excitement and paranoia. He could not stop bobbing his head and wringing his hands.
I know the Law because he came to me for advice whilst making his new film, in which he plays a tranny. I assume he has recently been involved in some hot theatre action at either the Old or New Vic, explaining his presence in this part of London.
I welcomed him with a smile and a wink but he conspiratorially manhandled me into an alleyway next to the Windmill pub. He put his lips to my ear, I could feel his warm shallow breath on my face and the smell of whisky, cheddar and pickled onions was paramount. A large blue vain throbbed on his forehead as he held me tightly against a filthy obscene graffiti covered wall.
I was expecting a drunken kiss but, through clenched teeth, he whispered, “Nelson, do not believe everything you read on the Internet. It is a stream of mis-information and untruths. Remember: Information is not knowledge.”
He pushed me away and walked into the road, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic. I saw him enter a kebab shop. There was a scream and a woman fainted.
I am happy to say that I have been rather prolific of late with the old songwriting. I believe it is a truism that black moods lead to more artistic inspiration and I have been rather inspired these last few months.
I am really looking forward to mid-summer when I am booked into the Davy Lawrence Deluxe Recording Studio Complex.
Here is a chorus from a song that is so brand new it does not even have a title yet:
“There’s a hole in my heart,
That’s as black as your tongue,
I can’t see how I can let love in,
I’m hearing you laugh at every mistake,
I’m shouting that I’ve had enough.”
This week I have mostly been listening to:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Zero
Operator Please
Get What You Want
Mega City Four
Terribly Sorry Bob
Explosions in the Sky
Travels In Constants (Vol. 21): The Rescue
Explosions in the Sky
Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever
The Raincoats
Odyshape
B-Movie
Forever Running
I went to see the new Star Trek film at the Genesis for a second time. It is very rare for me to do this but I thought this was a film that deserved a second viewing. The last time I did this was for the Lord of the Rings films, which I enjoyed much more the second time.
I was not sure about seeing Star Trek again, it is not exactly a deep film with many hidden meanings, but I am glad I did. I watched the film without my original scepticism and overly critical eye. I just enjoyed the ride. What a great action SF adventure this is, with great acting and breathtaking effects.
The juddery, constantly moving camera and screen glare are more annoying a second time though and Simon Pegg’s accent is terrible.
I noticed a couple of new things this time. There are a pair of tribbles in a cage on Scotty’s desk and you can hear them cooing. Greg Grunberg, who is in all of Abrams’ creations, was cut out as Kirk’s stepdad, but you can still hear him when Kirk is a little boy, over his vintage car’s Nokia phone. There is also a scene where McCoy turns around and asks for help from an off screen Nurse Chapel. During the Kobayashi Maru test Pine is seen eating an apple – as was Shatner during his explanation of how he passed/cheated in The Wrath of Khan.
Spock gives a very satisfying “Fascinating” when he activates the pilots chair in the Jellyfish but the best line of the film goes to McCoy during his first meeting with Kirk:
“Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.”
Halcyon Company, the producers of the Terminator series of films, have announced they are to make a cinema adaptation of the 1974 Philip K Dick novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. Halcyon holds the rights to produce works by the late author in conjunction with Electric Shepherd Productions, the production arm of his estate.
The novel tells the story of Jason Taverner, the result of a secret government experiment which created a number of unnaturally bright and beautiful people. Taverner is a wealthy, adored celebrity who wakes following an assassination attempt to discover that all record of him has disappeared. He is now a nobody in a futuristic dystopia where America has become a police state following a second Civil War.
The book won the John W Campbell Award for best SF novel in 1975 and was nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo Award and concerns the usual Dick themes of paranoia and identity.
Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson, producers at Halcyon, said, “There is such a treasure trove of material in Philip K. Dick’s work that it was a tough choice to decide which would be our debut film. His collection of sci-fi stories is truly unique and in a league of its own. Dick’s work by its very nature is perfect for the big screen.”
Here’s hoping for some proper, well made adaptations of classic Dick, such as Time Out of Joint, Martian Time Slip, Man in the High Castle, Ubik and Eye in the Sky. However, I am sure that we’ll end up with the usual turgid and preposterous rubbish of Next, Impostor and Paycheck.
Are the rapidly enlarging and engorged bags and sacks underneath both my eyes due to aging? Or are they due to panic, intense anxiety, stress, acute paranoia, clinical depression, alcoholism and sleepless nights?
Maybe it is both reasons. Oh, what a shame.