Monday, July 30, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Clark and Michael
It's a sad today in the Socialism condo today - our favourite web based TV show, Clark and Michael, is over. The last episode got streamed yesterday, bringing the the voyage of discovery of our titular heroes to the end. If you weren't on this already and you've got a spare hour and a bit, go back to the start at their site and roll through the 10 episodes. It's ace.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Loving...
It's been a shit couple of weeks, what better time to drop on you all the stuff that's still raising a smile here at Socialism towers?
Super Furry Animals "Hey Venus" (esp "Suckers" - best thing they've ever done)
Fujiya & Miyagi "Ankle Injuries" & the 7 on Regal (esp the B side)
Catcall "Diss"
Black Moth Super Rainbow "Dandelion Gum" (esp "Forever Heavy" - best title ever)
Beastie Boys "So Watcha Want?"
Edwyn Collins "Home Again" (comeback of the century)
Simone White "I Am The Man"
the Sly Stone reissues/hoping the gig is great this weekend
Underworld "Second Toughest In The Infants" (still sounds ahead of it's time)
The Chemical Brothers "We Are The Night"
R Kelly "Double Up" (check "Real Talk... oooh mama, what a number!)
Lovefoxxx at Latitude
Guilty Pleasures at Latitude
Clark & Michael (anything with Michael Cera, really)
David Cross live at the 100 Club the other week
the new bar at Ronnie Scotts (they gave us a git load of free wine today)
the Battles record
The Green Man Festival (fuck the weather, going fully loaded anyway)
Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve live at GMEX in Manchester
Pink Grease "LSD"
the new Turbonegro album
Cormac McCarthy "Blood Meridian" (and "No Country For Old Men" and "The Road")
the Brian Wilson exhibition at the Tate St Ives
Caught By The River.net
and Boris running for Mayor...
Super Furry Animals "Hey Venus" (esp "Suckers" - best thing they've ever done)
Fujiya & Miyagi "Ankle Injuries" & the 7 on Regal (esp the B side)
Catcall "Diss"
Black Moth Super Rainbow "Dandelion Gum" (esp "Forever Heavy" - best title ever)
Beastie Boys "So Watcha Want?"
Edwyn Collins "Home Again" (comeback of the century)
Simone White "I Am The Man"
the Sly Stone reissues/hoping the gig is great this weekend
Underworld "Second Toughest In The Infants" (still sounds ahead of it's time)
The Chemical Brothers "We Are The Night"
R Kelly "Double Up" (check "Real Talk... oooh mama, what a number!)
Lovefoxxx at Latitude
Guilty Pleasures at Latitude
Clark & Michael (anything with Michael Cera, really)
David Cross live at the 100 Club the other week
the new bar at Ronnie Scotts (they gave us a git load of free wine today)
the Battles record
The Green Man Festival (fuck the weather, going fully loaded anyway)
Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve live at GMEX in Manchester
Pink Grease "LSD"
the new Turbonegro album
Cormac McCarthy "Blood Meridian" (and "No Country For Old Men" and "The Road")
the Brian Wilson exhibition at the Tate St Ives
Caught By The River.net
and Boris running for Mayor...
Friday, July 13, 2007
Some very nice artworks
There's a damn fine night at the Social in London which has always encouraged people to, quite literally, get involved (whether shaking maracas or doing guest artwork), hence it's name, which is... Get Involved. Last month they encouraged people to doctor a blank poster and send their own ideas in. Now they've stuck them all on a website - we thought we'd link to them 'cos they are bloody fantastic. Next Get Involved is first Thursday of August, then first Thursday or every subsequent month.
Get Involved
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Stop Smiling
The new issue of Stop Smiling (aka "the magazine for high-minded lowlifes") fell through my letterbox yesterday - 31 issues in and these guys continue to produce one of the best magazines available anywhere. This issue, a Deep South special, continues to set the bar ridiculously high. Really worth seeking out, can't praise highly enough. Great logo too.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Monday, July 09, 2007
LIVE EARTH: THE TRUTH
The crap that people write. Keane the hit of Live Earth? Snow Patrol 'inspiring'? Johnny Borrell's feeble attempts to summon up the Dionysian Lizardry of Jimbo one of those unforgettable 'communal TV moments'? Do leave off. You may have missed this footage, beamed live to the UK from South America at two in the morning. It involves a rock star doing what rock stars do best. Witness, oh hapless Class Of 2007, and weep...How's this for hotting up the planet???
Thursday, July 05, 2007
A Socialism Hero Passes Away...
Sad to report that George Melly has passed away. The jazz man, fisher and raconteur was as much a fixture of Soho as The French House, Ronnie Scotts and the mad old bird who comes in the pubs blagging pound coins. Having worked and drunk in W1 since 1994, having started the mag off here in 2004 (Christ how come we've only managed 4 fucking issues????), we've spent many an time sat in pubs where Melly can be heard regaling the bar with bawdy stories of how Soho used to be. What a bloke, will be missed.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Hold Music
I was sat in a hotel room the other day, Popworld on the telly, bored senseless, when my girlfriend asked why there had to be so much new music all the time. She posited the idea that we should have a rest year from all new music, allowing ourselves a year to catch up and to discover all the music that has passed us by (not even rediscover - so many albums end up un-played, still all cellophane wrapped and unloved). It’s what everyone with an opinion and a few pints/a line or two in them starts crapping on about that they should do with Big Brother in order to refresh the format, give it a year or two off and let it breathe again. I thought, “Bloody hell, you know what, she’s on to something here”. I thought this as I watched the telly and saw the best that British music currently had on offer.
By God, it was bad. I saw Jack Penate, a hapless looking buffoon playing a horrible brand of needy indie skiffle, the one bloke who as a kid must have stared long and hard at the Fine Young Cannibals “Suspicious Minds” video and thought that the rubber legged guys dancing looking ‘cool’. Unfortunately for everyone, his oxen like physique doesn’t add much by way of gracefulness to his leaden prance-about. I’m sure he’s a top bloke, but fuck me, is this necessary? He has all the charm of ‘Just William’ shortly after crapping his pants, caught scrumping apples, just prior to a brutal, very deserved, caning. Next up, I saw TV advertising for The Holloways album, called, oh yes, “So This Is Great Britain?” – wow, no shit, People’s Poet, what else you got for us? The final straw was some former X Factor-er or Pop Idol or whatever playing blow football against Alex James (not even going there…) – the depths people will stoop to in order to get the last few seconds of fame they so crave, almost funny if it wasn’t so wincingly desperate. Neither the glorified Simon Cowell sanctioned pub singer or that (the insult I used here has been deemed possibly too harsh) who makes the cheese now managed to get a word in against the chirruping, gently sardonic unfunny presenters. After that, every successive act that lumbered on screen was like the Glastonbury mud or the Big Brother house gruel - just there, sticking to your shoes, sticking in your throat, unnecessary, annoying in the extreme – just more tedious excuses for music.
It was pretty soon after this that I started wondering whether maybe it’s just that I’m too old now and I’m starting to feel an affinity with old war horses like Luke Haines and Bill Drummond and their respective attempts to block out music from modern life, to foster an appreciation for the good stuff by silencing the bad out for a day or a week or whatever. I also pondered that maybe there was something in the air that day – that very morning I’d read with wide-eyed amazement about newsreader Mika Brzezinski’s refusal to read out a lead story on Paris Hilton on the MSNBC breakfast show. Her determination to cut off the oxygen supply of celebrity to someone so undeserving of it felt to me like the first wave breaking on a turning tide. Maybe her fantastically laudable act could be the spark that starts a move away from a smash and grab culture of instant gratification, the constant struggle to keep up with the Joneses, to keep feeling you have to give a fuck about the mundane or worse, just because it’s new and that’s what people like nowadays. Well maybe, at the end of the day, when it comes to giving a shit, the people are fucking stupid. Maybe now is the time to strike a blow to stop wave after wave of sallow faced, gimlet eyed indie bands, go back to a few old records, stop and smell the flowers rather than sprinting to the NME tent to see Kate Nash before she’s deemed unfashionable. Fuck a culture that lends a badge of honour to every bright young thing just cos they are shiny and new, regardless of whether they’re talented or not (‘cos let’s face it, most of these goons wouldn’t pass muster against, say Birdland, Fabulous or the second Suede album). I want out.
Yes, I thought, I’ve fucking had it with new music, the Mrs is right, let’s have that year off and reboot the whole fucking system. That's what I thought as I lay back and flicked open my Mojo 80’s special edition with exclusive Police interview on the cover as that new fucking Macca number hammers away on the telly on an I Pod advert... yes, this is what’s it’s all about…
Old news here but they've got a point...
Luke Haines National Pop Strike
Bill Drummond’s No Music Day
By God, it was bad. I saw Jack Penate, a hapless looking buffoon playing a horrible brand of needy indie skiffle, the one bloke who as a kid must have stared long and hard at the Fine Young Cannibals “Suspicious Minds” video and thought that the rubber legged guys dancing looking ‘cool’. Unfortunately for everyone, his oxen like physique doesn’t add much by way of gracefulness to his leaden prance-about. I’m sure he’s a top bloke, but fuck me, is this necessary? He has all the charm of ‘Just William’ shortly after crapping his pants, caught scrumping apples, just prior to a brutal, very deserved, caning. Next up, I saw TV advertising for The Holloways album, called, oh yes, “So This Is Great Britain?” – wow, no shit, People’s Poet, what else you got for us? The final straw was some former X Factor-er or Pop Idol or whatever playing blow football against Alex James (not even going there…) – the depths people will stoop to in order to get the last few seconds of fame they so crave, almost funny if it wasn’t so wincingly desperate. Neither the glorified Simon Cowell sanctioned pub singer or that (the insult I used here has been deemed possibly too harsh) who makes the cheese now managed to get a word in against the chirruping, gently sardonic unfunny presenters. After that, every successive act that lumbered on screen was like the Glastonbury mud or the Big Brother house gruel - just there, sticking to your shoes, sticking in your throat, unnecessary, annoying in the extreme – just more tedious excuses for music.
It was pretty soon after this that I started wondering whether maybe it’s just that I’m too old now and I’m starting to feel an affinity with old war horses like Luke Haines and Bill Drummond and their respective attempts to block out music from modern life, to foster an appreciation for the good stuff by silencing the bad out for a day or a week or whatever. I also pondered that maybe there was something in the air that day – that very morning I’d read with wide-eyed amazement about newsreader Mika Brzezinski’s refusal to read out a lead story on Paris Hilton on the MSNBC breakfast show. Her determination to cut off the oxygen supply of celebrity to someone so undeserving of it felt to me like the first wave breaking on a turning tide. Maybe her fantastically laudable act could be the spark that starts a move away from a smash and grab culture of instant gratification, the constant struggle to keep up with the Joneses, to keep feeling you have to give a fuck about the mundane or worse, just because it’s new and that’s what people like nowadays. Well maybe, at the end of the day, when it comes to giving a shit, the people are fucking stupid. Maybe now is the time to strike a blow to stop wave after wave of sallow faced, gimlet eyed indie bands, go back to a few old records, stop and smell the flowers rather than sprinting to the NME tent to see Kate Nash before she’s deemed unfashionable. Fuck a culture that lends a badge of honour to every bright young thing just cos they are shiny and new, regardless of whether they’re talented or not (‘cos let’s face it, most of these goons wouldn’t pass muster against, say Birdland, Fabulous or the second Suede album). I want out.
Yes, I thought, I’ve fucking had it with new music, the Mrs is right, let’s have that year off and reboot the whole fucking system. That's what I thought as I lay back and flicked open my Mojo 80’s special edition with exclusive Police interview on the cover as that new fucking Macca number hammers away on the telly on an I Pod advert... yes, this is what’s it’s all about…
Old news here but they've got a point...
Monday, July 02, 2007
Been away for a week...
Sorry for the delay in service, just got out of the mud at Glastonbury, thought I was going to be one of those feral people that they find on site tripping their nuts off after taking too much rain damaged acid or something... anyways, back to work... the best thing we've found since being away is the create your own Simpsons character on their site - get on it...
this rules...
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