Fat Roland On Electronica

Cars and girls

2012-01-28T22:14:00.000Z

It's strange growing up in some of the 70s and all of the 80s. Because it means, like everyone else who is exactly my age, I know every word to Prefab Sprout's 1988 UK#44 hit Cars And Girls.

When asked in a job interview once why I would be suitable for the position, I said I was 'in it for the cars and girls'. They didn't get the Prefab Sprout reference, but I did get the job.

Now I'm all about the cars and girls. It's my mantra. It's my life.

Cars. And girls. Everyone who knows me says that's all I talk about. I've even been tweeting about cars and girls. As Prefab Sprout said, "Look at us now, keep driving, something something something cars and girls."

Click here (or click the picture, I guess) to see a larger, readable version.

The ApartHotel (Techno Plug) Experience

2012-01-14T15:52:00.000Z

Anyone who has been within 50 miles of me over the past week would have seen me frothing at the goolies at the thought of staying in an aparthotel.

An aparthotel is like a hotel but it has flats instead of rooms. Technically, it's a flotel.

I was staying in one of these portmanteau properties for a work thing. That is the dull bit. The interesting bit is it had a TECHNO PLUG. Imagine Autechre doing your plumbing.

Let this overly long video explain more...

Skrillex is fourth in the BBC Sound Of "Zane Lowe"

2012-01-08T11:38:00.000Z

We've had a momentous start to 2012 and you don't even know it. Comical screamo dubstep kid Skrillex has come fourth in the BBC Sound Of 2012.

The Sound Of 2012 is an annual poll of pop pundits and producers. The voters include shadowy behind-the-scenes people from the BBC, the music editor of Skins and the head of music for, um, BT Vision.

Oh and "Zane Lowe". If that's his real name.

They tip their hat towards artists who are yet to enjoy major success, the Beeb stuffs the hat through a sorting hat and then the top five hats are put in order of hat.

The Sound Of [Enter Year] rarely gets it right. In 2005, they chose The Bravery over Tom Vek, while winners have included Mika and 50 Cent (really?!).

The rest of 2012's top five isn't relevant because I've just clicked away the tab in Firefox, but I'm pretty sure it comprises some soul singer, Niki & The Dove, a really sweary woman and a man named after the sea. The important thing is there is comedy dubstep at number four.

In a revealing interview for the BBC, Skrillex says he has been jamming with Nero and, if you listen carefully, admits he takes a nap between his gigs and his aftershow parties. He seems like a nice guy. A tired, nice guy.

If "Zane Lowe" likes him, then he's okay by me. Because we all love "Zane Lowe". As long as - and this is an appeal from my steaming bowels - Skrillex stops doing that thing with his hands. Seriously...

Hounds Of Hulme: Midnite EP (final promo video 3)

2012-01-04T17:00:00.000Z

Edit: The Midnite EP can now be bought here: only a quid! Oh and this, incidentally, is the 600th post on Fat Roland On Electronica.

Street teams have been walking every avenue of the country promoting the inevitable number one single from Hounds Of Hulme, posting flyers through doors, shouting the track names through loudhailers and spray-painting the band logo on children's faces.

Of course, that's not true. There's no street team. When one of your band members is a horse (see the band line-up on the Bandcamp page), you spend most of your time clearing the poo-droppings from the mixing desk. At least, we would if we had a mixing desk. Or a shovel. We use our hands. In fact, we have fashioned all the horse manure into a big brown pretend mixing desk.

All I have is my final promotional video, which is pretty similar to the others. And this is how I'm describing the EP:

"3 tracks of glitchy techno packaged with artwork, a hilarious two-page PDF survival guide to one of the tracks and a bonus bad quality video... all for only a quid."

The video is really bad, although it's fun. At one point I was recording moving pictures of my own wallpaper. The promo videos here are only a screenshot from one frame. If you want to see the full three minutes, you'll have to buy the EP, obviously.

I've released a few Hounds Of Hulme tracks over the past few months. Yes, I kept it quiet. One of them was the backing track for this advert for Quickies: Short Stories For Adults, while another track was described as a "sparse and minimalist mechanoid meltdown glitch funk groove" and compared to EMF, Eskimos in Egypt, Jesus Jones and Wagon Christ. Which was perceptive because I own records by all four bands on vinyl or on tape or on wax cylinder.

Hardly anyone will take notice of the Hounds so if the Midnite EP sells more than a handful, I'll crack open the champagne / Toblerone. Roll on Monday... watch out for the pre-order appearing on Bandcamp later this week.

Edit: This was the 600th post on this blog, so I've plopped in a bit of artwork to celebrate the fact. If you like the artwork, it will be available as a permanent tattoo on Etsy in the next few minutes.

Hounds Of Hulme: Midnite EP (promo video 2)

2012-01-03T09:30:00.000Z

Edit: The Midnite EP can now be bought here: only a quid!

Following on from the promo video yesterday for my debut single as Hounds Of Hulme, here is an ever-so-slightly different promo video.

The great news is that the Midnite EP is now a "package". So it's not just three tracks of techno noodling, and it's not just that one of them has a bad quality video, and it's not just artwork bundled with the tracks, but you now get a two-page PDF survival guide designed to help you listen to the the longest track on the EP and not die before you get to the end.

Here's a glimpse of the survival guide (below), complete with track timings. If you want the whole thing, you'll have to buy the EP, which goes on pre-sale later this week in advance of its official release on January 9th.

In the words of forgotten mid-noughties r'n'b sensation Ciara, "Looking for the goodies? Keep on looking coz they stay in the jar... unless you give me a quid on Bandcamp, in which case you can download the advertised product."

Hounds Of Hulme: Midnite EP (promo video 1)

2012-01-02T13:33:00.001Z

Edit: The Midnite EP can now be bought here: only a quid!

Expect a few days of relentless self-promotion as I catapult into the world what appears to be my debut single.

I've avoided the restrictions of getting a record deal, having a producer, using a recording studio, getting any promotion or employing any form of quality control. Instead, it's just me and my bandmates in Hounds Of Hulme, one of which is a horse.

I'm quite glad to finally announce this as I've kept it under my hat for a few weeks: I kind of wanted it to be a New Year thing. This promotional video may explain more. Or not. The Midnite EP is released on Monday. It will be available for pre-ordering on Bandcamp later this week.

Hounds Of Hulme: 9th January 2012...

2012-01-01T14:44:00.000Z

Best electronica albums of 2011: number 1

2011-12-31T18:00:00.000Z

Brummie music thinkbod Andrew Dubber recently railed against the habit of hacks writing off 2011 as the ‘year of boring music’. He argued that it said more about the paucity of stimulation in the journalists’ lives rather than a lack of good quality music.

“I suspect that it is not our musicians that have let us down, but our champions of music.

"So if your job is to report upon popular music and you are unable to find ten incredible things in the past year to share with those of us who still read what you have to say, then that makes you a failure.”

“John Peel-ism should be the norm,” he added.

Let me extend that thought. If you’ve ever liked a YouTube music video then left a comment declaring old music to be way better than the mulch that is spooned down our gullets today, then you might as well piss all over John Peel’s grave, suck up the urine from the soil, wait for it to digest, then take a second slash whilst banging on about how the first piss was a nicer shade of yellow.

My difficulty was not finding ten incredible things, but narrowing it down to an arbitrary number that inevitably led me to exclude something quite important....

[This is part four. Click here for part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three.]

Some also rans

...James Blake’s album James Blake (Atlas). The most important underground electronic music artist of the past year is not in my top ten, despite me doing everything I could into tricking you into thinking he was Album Of The Year at the end of my previous post. Sorry 'bout that.

Last December, I indicated the excitement that preceded his debut album. When it finally came it, I felt it was playing to a quite different audience. An intricate album full of beautiful bass that even caught the attention of Beyonce – but there were ten other incredible things I wanted to share more than Blake's LP.

Other also-rans include new kids on the block, Cant. I found their album Dreams Come True (Warp) too band-y. I believe the monumentally entertaining Ceephax Acid Crew had an Unstoppable Phax Machine (030303), but I didn't get the memo, whilst there was no space in the top ten for the industrial glory of Byetone’s Symeta (Raster Notion) nor for Brian Eno’s poet-poking Drums Between The Bells (Warp).

Which only leaves one thing: a young Glasgow musician who’s brandishing something long, transparent and deadly. It’s a glass sword. That was a reference to a glass sword. Not his penis.

1 - Rustie - Glass Swords

The arpeggiated mayhem of Zig-Zag was the first moment beat-nuts took notice of Rustie. With that track and the 2009 highlight Bad Science EP, he very much sounded like a kid earning his dues in the Lucky Me collective’s electronic workshop.

Meanwhile, his mentors Hudson Mohawke and Mike Slott lead the way for the Glaswegians with, respectively, the Butter and Lucky 9Teen albums. Rustie, perhaps, sounded like the talented apprentice playing with the Nintendo in the corner, biding his time until...

Glass Swords (Warp). It takes three minutes for the first insane slap bass to cut through the ambience to make way for an orgy of portamento mayhem and retro computer game wizardry.

It brings to mind the retro synth mischief of Lorn, whose 2010 debut sounded like a naughty Knight Rider breaking into the Blade Runner film set. Rustie’s debut takes that philosophy much further. If Lorn was Kansas in black and white, Glass Swords is so far over the rainbow, it has hypercoloured the sun itself.

This is the sound of a young pretender dicking about with his software, which would be really annoying at a party, but committed to record it is a joy. He pumps up the Hudson Mohawke beat aesthetic until it bursts.

All Night is a soul jam at the most disgusting sex party ever to be held in your bass bins. Hover Traps is simply the catchiest tune of 2011, Globes sounds like drums crashing against the dawn of time, while After Light throbs with so much minor chord desire between the cut-up voices and blistering bass, you’ll be writing love letters to Glass Swords well into your pensionable years.

Every synth crunch on Glass Swords is a Glasgow kiss that requires, if you so please, your full bleeping attention. And it is all underpinned with a crystal-clear balance of melody and emotion. It feels to good to have Rustie battering my ear drums. You know how you can get fish to nibble your corn-encrusted feet in pretentious shopping centres? In this case, your feet are your ears and instead of fish there are nice things like pies and ice pops and bacon Frazzles.

Which reminds me, I’m hungry. Rustie's Glass Swords is my Album Of The Year 2011 because it matters and I'll be humming it in a year's time. Do have a listen below. Thank you for reading my blog in 2011. It has been an extraordinary year in many ways, and none of it would be possible if lovely people like you didn’t dip your eyes in my word sludge every now and then. Let’s do the same in 2012, only more ridiculous, more unrestrained and with more bacon Frazzles. Did I tell you I was hungry?

[This is part four. Click here for part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three.]

Best electronica albums of 2011: numbers 4 to 2

2011-12-31T14:00:00.000Z

We are approaching the Album Of The Year much in the same way an astronaut with an upside-down map is heading for the sun. By the time you finish reading this blog post, you should be in a position to try and guess the winner of this year’s top accolade.

Meanwhile, let’s check out the nearly gang in our penultimate collection of also-rans. Once that's done, we'll crank up the Top Of The Bleeps theme music with numbers 4 to 2.

[This is part three. Click here for part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part four.]

Some also-rans

I’m very sad to exclude Björk, especially after her triumphant performance of the Attenborough-tastic Biophilia (One Little Indian). She had a Tesla coil for crap’s sake. However, although she is on top of her game right now, it’s not really electronica of the Fat Roland On Electronica variety.

At the very bottom of their game is Paris’s own Justice, whose new album Audio, Video, Disco (Ed Banger) was such a mess, I wasn’t sure if Spinal Tap were having a seizure: at first amusing then just painful and sad. Imagine The Who teaming up with David Guetta. No, it wouldn’t be fantastic, you’re wrong. In 2011, Justice made me cross.

Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek’s Africa HiTech project was a joy to the ears: 93 Million Miles (Warp) was bristling with bass and bad attitude – but not a top ten spot. Also not in the top ten is Biosphere, whose nuclear-themed concept album N-Plants (Touch) was gorgeous and just okay at the same time, while SBTRKT’s SBTRKT (Young Turks) was filed along with Nero in the grey bin next to my desk marked ‘pop’.

4 - Modeselektor - Monkeytown

In 1998, Thom Yorke threw a rabbit into the headlights and set the standard for guest vocalists on Unkle’s debut Psyence Fiction. It’s remarkable then that he should return all these years later and equal that achievement on Modeselektor’s third album Monkeytown (Monkeytown). It’s not the first time they have worked together, of course, but the tracks Shipwreck and This are hypnotic and beguiling.

Beyond the Yorkie bombs are other highlights: the hotstepping German Clap, the digital urgency of the loping Grillwalker, the emotive melody on the PVT-collaboration Green Light and the absurd hip hop of Pretentious Friends (“the pâté was fabulous!”).

We’re so spoilt with this Berlin duo’s dexterity, confidence and (whisper it) pop sensibilities, it almost seems a shame that the claustrophobic Shipwreck b-side Dull Hull isn’t on show too.

Unstoppable, bass-driven, ear-hugging digitalism: this is the rise of the town of the monkeys. Come on my ‘selektor.

3 - Plaid - Scintilli

Plaid are a duo that arose from godfathers of bleepery The Black Dog and became the techno musician’s techno musician, much in the same way that Stewart Lee is the comedian’s comedian and your great granddad is the racist’s racist.

Until now, Spokes was their best post-1990s album: it had amazing tunes but, unlike actual spokes, didn’t quite hang together as a whole. Scintilli (Warp) is the scintillating icing on the, um, spoke cake.

Opening with jingling guitars, which brings to mind 2001’s Eyen, we’re quickly smothered with choral sorrow and their trademark awkward chord progressions. Eye Robot brings in the fuzzy techno, Thank leads us into the cheery eeriness seen on many a Plaid album and by the fourth track, the anthemnic Dr Who work-out of Unbank, we’re ready for a tea break. The rest of the album careers from sunny dance numbers (African Woods) to sheer strangeness (Talk To Us), but it’s all perfectly Plaid.

This band has spent five years dabbling in other media, most notably for their audio-visual project Greedy Baby, but they have been in danger of seeing their traditional fans drift off. In that respect, Plaid have checked themselves and produced their best album for at least ten years.

2 - Martyn - Ghost People

The Brainfeeder label was the success story of 2010, with important releases from Lorn, Teebs and The Gaslamp Killer, and a crucial partnership with Ninja Tune. They were responsible for the return of Mr Ozio this year and they were even a headline feature in the Guardian a month or two ago.

All along, however, I felt that without a Brainfeeder-labelled album from their godlike founder Flying Lotus (he releases on Warp), they’d never quite crack it. They just needed something... something extra. I don’t know. Something indefinable. A ghost, maybe.

Ghost People (Brainfeeder) is a spectre to behold and should be the album that propels Brainfeeder into the premier league. I’m mixing metaphors again. Martyn has produced an aural dystopia in which shards of rave and techno have darkness cast upon them until they glisten molten musical antimatter.

Popgun could just be bouncy Joy Orbison dubstep with the occasional vocal grunt, but the atmospherics lift the sound into something greater than its parts. The driving Bauplan is so beautifully melodic, you either want to go for a run or a cry. And the choppy We Are You In The Future sounds like the theme music for every techno track ever recorded. Everyone is trying this sound, but Martyn does it best.

I wrestled over the decision whether to make Martyn’s Ghost People my album of the year or not. But no. There is another. A debut album so great, so absorbing, with such unique production, it ought to have every kid with a smidgen of soul mimicking his sound. Stay tuned, dear reader, for my Album Of The Year 2011.

[This is part three. Click here for part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part four.]

Best electronica albums of 2011: numbers 7 to 5

2011-12-30T16:00:00.000Z

Welcome back to my countdown of the best electronic music albums of 2011. Have a look at my previous post, why don’t you.

Before we fondle the edges of the top five, let’s have a look at some more people that coulda been a contender but they weren't because I wiped them on the doormat on the way in.

[This is part two. Click here for part one. Click here for part three. Click here for part four.]

Some also-rans

It’s always a tightrope wobble producing this annual series of blog posts, because I don’t want my top ten to be too guitary. Metronomy fell just about on the wrong side of the divide so they are not included in my final list, but that doesn’t stop The English Riviera (Because) being one of the best albums for ages.

Katy B, darling of what I call the Radio 1 dubstep scene, did wonders for Magnetic Man. However, On A Mission (Rinse) didn’t convert me and she misses out on the top ten. Again. At this rate Skream will be round my place brandishing a pointed microphone stand. Again.

Balam Acab’s liquid loveliness on Wander / Wonder (Tri Angle) missed out on a place in the final list, which is a shame for such a brittle marvel. Thundercat’s The Golden Age Of Apocalypse (Brainfeeder) was too jazz funk for my tastes while Shigeto’s Full Circle Remixes and Gold Panda’s Companion (Ghostly International) walk away from this blog with nothing more than this brief mention right here in this sentence just here.

7 - The Field - Looping State Of Mind

Like an agoraphobic moo-cow, I have been ignoring The Field. In 2007, his album From Here We Go Sublime scooped critical praise but it skittered past me because I was probably too busy listening to The Klaxons. And so to 2011, when I finally not only listened to The Field, but I whacked them straight into my top ten with their Looping State Of Mind (Kompakt).

The album opens with the soft siren call of Is This Power, which is all very nice, then they hit you with the monumental It’s Up There, a chugging 4:4 builder not a million miles from Rez-era Underworld. Arpeggiated Love too has a special kind of 10-minute stuck-needle aesthetic.

It’s probably the easiest listen in this whole top ten, but there’s something about the slow evolution of each song, the recurring sounds and the minimalism that helped this album find a particularly warm spot in my listening hole.

6 - Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX - We’re New Here

Dubstep is a term batted about more than Max Mosley’s bum in a dungeon, and I’m not sure it means anything anymore in a world in which Benga, Burial and Skrillex all lay claim to the term. Post-dubstep is easier. If it’s someone electronic trying to sound like The xx, then it’s post-dubstep. We’re New Here (XL) is post-dubstep. Apparently.

Jamie XX’s stroke of genius was only choosing to use the vocals when remixing Gil Scott-Heron’s 2010 album I’m New Here. He loaded his remixes with future party goodness and created an album that stands on its own. An instant classic and an essential for your record collection, Mr XX’s incredible attention to detail will keep you glued to the speakers. We’re New Here has bouncy bass (NY Is Killing Me), house music (I’ll Take Care Of U), utter beat mayhem (The Crutch) , all underpinning lashings of that smoky, smoky voice.

A true pioneer bringing another true pioneer to a new audience. Gil Scott-Heron, lost to us all in 2011, lives on in the dub.

5 - Surgeon - Breaking The Frame

Taking a million years out doesn’t tend to encourage a quality comeback (see James Cameron’s Avatar or the Stone Roses’s Second Coming), but by the sounds of the furious techno on offer on Breaking The Frame (Dynamic Tension), Surgeon has been percolating quite nicely.

He is in an utterly uncompromising mood, but as the static anger of Radiance gives in to the harps from hell on Presence, there is beauty here too. An evil beauty.

The loops are tight although they still give the impression of an army of machines with steam valves and dangerous malfunctions, the hisses and the gasps stretching out loosely over waspish choirs and malevolent melodics. In some ways, it’s a throw-back to the faceless, tuneless Tresor techno of the 1990s: you know, when dance music was good. And most importantly, more than any artist of 2011, Surgeon stands out as someone unwilling to bend, someone out to please only himself; a man and his machines and, as a result, a bunch of slobbering (and terrified) techno fans.

[This is part two. Click here for part one. Click here for part three. Click here for part four.]

Best electronica albums of 2011: numbers 10 to 8

2011-12-29T18:01:00.001Z

Welcome to my annual review of the best electronica albums.

I must start dear reader, with an apology. I got it wrong last year: Luke Abbott's Holkham Drones (Border Community) languished at number three on 2010’s list, but repeated plays makes me think it should have taken the top spot. Oh well. Mount Kimbie ain’t giving their crown back.

So no pressure then. This year’s best electronica list is, if I may say so, utter brillsocks. Every album featured I love to bits, have slept with several times and have moved into a bungalow with. Before we lap up the goodness, let’s see some of the tracks I spat out. After that, we’ll crack on with the top ten.

[This is part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three. Click here for part four.]

Some also-rans

Walls were darlings of the ambient community in 2010, so they went and ditched the driftiness and took up dance beats instead. Their album Coracle (Kompakt) was closer to techno and therefore closer to my heart, but it wasn’t enough to make the list.

Bibio scored highly in my best electronica review two years ago but 2011’s Mind Bokeh (Warp) seemed confused: their sub-Orson rock song Take Off Your Shirt was, well, like Orson. Meanwhile, Tycho's Dive (Ghostly International) was lovely, Zomby’s Dedication (4AD) didn’t quite do it for me, while I got Dave Monolith’s Welcome (Rephlex) for Christmas and haven’t had time to absorb it yet.

10 - Falty DL - You Stand Uncertain

You Stand Uncertain (Planet Mu) is such a complete world and yet, by all rights, it ought to be a disconnected mess of rave, house, r’n’b and techno samples.

Take Lucky Luciano. It starts with some slow-motion rave riffery, hypes it up with some breakbeat samba and “oooh yeah” vocal samples, throws in some frenetic funky drummer-ness and suddenly we’re in a watery world of 808 State techno followed by some drill’n’bass-lite. The fact that this one track holds together is a miracle, never mind the album as a whole.

I’m less keen when it gets too far down the garage path and I could do without the female vocal tracks: they feel too much like a bid for radio play. You Stand Uncertain works better in the abstract as repeated melodies work their way into your brain and hang around for the rest of the record, or when a new opposing theme drifts into the music as if uninvited and the whole records hangs beautifully in the delicate, titular uncertainty.

9 - Machinedrum - Room(s)

If Travis Stewart was an actual machine, he’d be a bit rusty around the wingnuts because he’s been in service now for ten years as Machinedrum, Sepalcure, Tstewart and Syndrone.

A brief flirtation with Glasgow’s Lucky Me record label oiled his creativity as he left behind his glitchy past in favour of more upfront electro. Room(s) (Planet Mu) is the full-flexing realisation of that change: swirling vocals and complex breakbeats abound.

In fact, that’s pretty much the motif of Room(s). Busy rave rhythms agitate echoing soul vocals, such as the “for real” refrain of Now U Know Tha Deal 4 Real, the auto tuned U Don’t Survive or the people wailing at the choppy synths in The Statue. A highlight is the additively repetitive She Died There. And with a lot of the tracks coming in at the four or five minute mark, Mr Drum knows how to structure things so that nothing outstays its welcome. Pitchfork wrote off this album as “devoid of its creators voice” – they couldn’t be more wrong.

8 - Kuedo - Severant

Three Planet Mu albums in a row: crikes.

I never thought a Carly Simon sample would end up in my annual album reviews, but it’s happened thanks to the fifth track on Kuedo’s debut album which sees the famous “la de dah de dah” refrain from the ‘80s songstress go to battle with a helicopter or at the very least, a synthesiser that dearly wants to be a helicopter. Next up, Burial doing Coming Around Again on a hovercraft?

Kuedo is a new name around these parts, but most will recognise him as remixer and producer Jamie Vex’d out of, um Vex’d. There is not much comparison, however. While Vex’d The Duo snarled and growled like some crazed darkstep killing monster, and Jamie Vex’d The Soloist sounded like Ninja Tune down a k-hole, the new Kuedo project has a different flavour. Severant (Planet Mu) sounds like a Vangelis remix album. It is a landscape of yearning 1980s chord sequences (Truth Flood), cinematic analogue ambience (Salt Lake Cuts) and delicate melancholia (Visioning Shared Tomorrows). This album will pluck your heart strings until they shimmer.

[This is part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three. Click here for part four.]

Best movies of 2011: numbers 5 to 1

2011-12-28T20:48:00.000Z

My review of films in 2011 trudges on like a troll through a Norwegian forest. See if you can guess which one of these top five films contains trolls and Norwegian forests. That's right. Tyrannosaur. Peter Mullan's furious about those damn trolls and those damn trees.

[This is part three. Click here for part one. Click here for part two. See also 2010 and 2009.]

5 - Tyrannosaur

The terrifying driving instructor from Happy-Go-Lucky pushes Peep Show’s Sophie into the arms of My Name Is Joe, but not in a way you'd expect. A stunning directorial debut from Paddy Considine that slowly smudges your sympathies from black and white into grey. The violence is often more malevolent than just physical force so this is not a film for the faint-hearted. But hey, it's about a Christian working in a charity shop, so it's all light and fluffy, yeah?

4 - Source Code

Groundhog Day condensed to eight minutes. The extremely false set-up of Source Code makes Flight Of The Navigator look like Newsnight, but the time restriction lights a narrative touch-paper that produces a thrilling science fiction blockbuster that stimulates the intelligence and lies somewhere between Quantum Leap, Unstoppable and, um, 50 First Dates.

3 - Troll Hunter

“Troll!” Welcome to Cloverfjord where the Scandinavian troll legend is realised in its full CGI horror. Otto Jesperson’s deadpan poacher is as concerned with red tape as he is with the creatures he is hunting. A pseudo-documentary with black comedy teeth, this is a delight from start to finish and unlike anything else at the cinema this year. The bridge thing? Best film moment of 2011. Read more at Screen 150.

2 - Submarine

2011 was a brilliant year for British directorial debuts, but it’s Richard Ayoade (IT Crowd, Nathan Barley, Mighty Boosh, Darkplace) that takes the honours with a debut brought to us by him, Warp Films and Ben Stiller.

A geeky paranoid boy tries to solve his parents’ relationship problems whilst trying to hook up with the girl he both loves and fears. The girl in question is Yasmin Paige who withers more than Jeremy Paxman in a heatwave. A quotable script, a massive funny bone, great music and pitch-perfect visual motifs that return you to your own paranoid childhood (a fairground, a Polaroid camera, a kaleidoscope). The comedy of the year.

1 - Senna

A documentary is my film of the year.

So why should this share such a prestigious honour (hey, stop laughing) with Another Year (2010) and Where The Wild Things Are (2009)? Although I like formula one, Senna was before my time and so the film held no emotional pull for me as I walked into the flicks: in fact, I'm always apprehensive of sport in movies. What I experienced though was movie-making of the highest grade.

The film follows the racing star in the ten years leading up to his death, eschewing normal racing footage for intimate high-speed close-ups and behind-the-scenes tension. We see Senna the god but then Senna the battler as he falls foul of the authorities. As the film approaches its Titanic moment, the doom is played out with a cold steadiness that will either have you on the edge of your seat or cowering behind it. Because it’s not just Senna and Ratzenberger that were victims during that fateful weekend...

Senna tells a narrative and lets the racing take second place, and that's why it is such a triumph. It brings to mind not other sporting movies, but rockumentary Dig! which funnelled acres of doco footage into an equally compelling tale. Director Asif Kapadia clearly picked only certain elements of Senna's controversial life during his edit (there were 15,000 hours of footage), but he hasn't gone all Iron Lady on us. Instead, he has compellingly told a story that resonates through time. At 18,000rpm.

[This is part three. Click here for part one. Click here for part two. See also 2010 and 2009.]

Best movies of 2011: numbers 10 to 6

2011-12-28T19:39:00.000Z

So far, my top movies of 2011 have included a bear man selling teeth, also some fannies and bums, and a collection of amazing mullets. Time to start the top ten, in which you will find aliens, wallpaper and dinosaurs.

[This is part two. Click here for part one. Click here for part three. See also 2010 and 2009.]

10 - Attack The Block

Hoodies take on aliens in a funny and, yes, believable debut from the one who isn’t Adam from Adam & Joe. The yoots rob and prowl and ought to be the real villains, but once the terrifying shadowy claws start ripping them to shreds, our loyalties remain firmly in the four walls of the London tower blocks. A pleasure to see an 'urban' film where the protagonists are, beneath the hoodies, quite normal.

9 - Black Swan

Natalie Portman goes mental, or does she, and is she really Natalie Portman? Black Swan is full of directorial tricks designed to confuse the viewer and I hated it on first watch. But the feathery beast kept pecking away at me until it pulled me under. And now I think it’s the best ballet-masturbation combination of 2011.

8 - The King’s Speech

Colin Firth, on a roll from A Single Man and, er, St Trinians 2, takes the stutter rap as he walks into a delightful culture clash with straight-talking Geoffrey Rush. The Rush family wallpaper was worth the cinema ticket alone. All Firth needs to do now is to go back in time and do the same for Geoffrey in Shine. Oscar or no Oscar, this is the drama of the year: think Frost / Nixon with bluer blood.

7 - We Need To Talk About Kevin

The impossibly thin Tilda Swinton descends to motherhood hell as her impossibly thin offspring Ezra Miller turns from Damien into a high school killer. It's difficult to build tension when the foreshadows of the bloody climax loom larger than Miller's massive scowl, but this tale of painful alienation and archery sparks from the screen thanks in no small part to its photo-perfect arthouse cinematography.

6 - The Tree Of Life

The entire universe is created, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn think about stuff, the entire universe dies. Not one for your Twilight audience, Terence Mallick’s ambitious epic is more like a tone poem than a narrative - although there is a story in there somewhere. Absolutely beautiful, from dinosaurs to a depressed dad to dwarf stars. Just don't expect a Stephanie Meyer novelisation any time soon.

[This is part two. Click here for part one. Click here for part three. See also 2010 and 2009.]

Best movies of 2011: numbers 15 to 11

2011-12-28T18:34:00.000Z

Welcome to my favourite films of 2011. First, let's start with some disclaimers so I'm not beaten to death by movie geeks brandishing cola straws.

[This is part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three. See also 2010 and 2009.]

I missed numerous 2011 films: this top 15 has more holes than the plot of Transformers. So Drive is safely parked away, while The Artist maintains a respectful silence. Neither is there Tintin, Harry Potter nor bloody Mars Needs Moms. And no shouty Nicholas Cage.

There were some films I did see that didn’t make it into the list. The Adjustment Bureau, about men in hats walking through walls, was entertaining if not original, while Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ticked all the boxes but failed to be greater than the sum of its parts. Kill List was my hands-down film of the year until the ending reduced it to a laughable failure. And Paul simply wasn’t good enough to be included.

Tron Legacy would have been in my top ten last year, but I saw it after I’d written my write-up and now it’s too late to join this year’s list. Yes, it was trash, but it was rezzed-up techno trash and I Daft-Punking loved it. Also, I finally saw Catfish (otherwise known as the other Facebook film) and was mightily entertained if a little paranoid about ever logging on again.

15 - Super 8

Part Stand By Me, part Close Encounters, this is JJ Abrams’ love letter to Stephen Spielberg. Which is a bit like The Hulk taking up needlecraft. The ‘berg served as producer for this wide-eyed adventure story, which is probably why the movie manages to soften the stupendously moronic storyline with a dash of nostalgia and more than a little warmth.

14 - The Inbetweeners Movie

Popular television comedy writ large for the big screen? If that idea of that doesn’t fill you with dread, then you’ve never seen The Simpsons Movie. As it is, the film delivers the requisite quota of fannies and bums and silly dancing despite the woeful near-absence of Greg Davies. Any film that gets Kylie to say "clunge" at an awards ceremony gets my vote.

13 - True Grit

For any other film makers, Bear Man (“I have taken his teeth: I will entertain an offer for the rest of him”) would be their best character ever. But these are the Coens and they play oddball better than anyone. True Grit is a solid remake shot with a slow and steady hand and is only slightly spoilt by an action-led last act that seems a bit unCoeny.

12 - Arthur Christmas

Yes, really. A red-nosed Christmas classic co-written by Peter ‘Alan Partridge’ Baynham and with all the adult nuances of Nick Park’s more famous inventor and dog. A glittering cast helps: Laurie, McAvoy, Jensen, Broadbent, Palin, Staunton and Nighy (“right down the Rodney hole!”). It really didn't need the 3D, so leave those stupid specs at home.

11 - The Fighter

Christian Bale does crazy and Mark Wahlberg does Rocky in a film that ought to be a knock-off of an old idea, but is brought to life with two compelling central performances and a gaggle of Christopher Guest-style ensemble characters clad in amazing mullets. Empire Of The Sun and the Funky Bunch seem like such a long time ago.

[This is part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three. See also 2010 and 2009.]

I am not typing

2011-12-06T17:55:00.001Z

I am not blogging at the moment. Instead, I am preparing new material for the book-of-my-blog which I promised you a couple of months ago.

10,000 is the word target I'm aiming for this week, which I should pass tomorrow. This does mean I have now spent three whole days indoors thinking and typing, thinking and typing. In the words of Sir Fredrick of Mecury, I'm going slightly mad. I've only spoken to the newsagent and the man who came to service my boiler.

That's NOT a euphemism.

Here are some of the words that now sit proudly in this week's first draft. I'm quite happy with it so far:

Belch, bucket, cloys, cocked, consolation, daaaah, dismembered, drizzle, entropy, fedora, fundamentalist, gaslamp, heroin, monochrome, neanderthal, nipple, oscillators, panda, psychogeography, putrescent, sable, sextet, slaughter, snog, swagger, tympanic, unicycling, vestibule, wolves.

"Our Future Books..."

2011-11-28T18:41:00.001Z

It is a year, a week and a day since my patently ridiculous call to literary arms, The Beatoff Generation.

Since then, we've run reading events, pub quizzes and competitions, and even produced an anthology which was, let's face it, a hare's testicle away from being outright pr0n.

It has also changed this blog because much of my spare time is now about writing fiction rather than raving with the Aphex 'til the wee hours. In the past fortnight or so, you may have seen me read a story about a desperate shop manager at ReTale, try out my Brian Cox dirtiness at Exhibit C, watched me spew out my first 20-minute set at Blank Space and have authors spluttering into their beer at Word Soup.

The aftermath of my Blank Space set can be seen in this picture. This represents the fall-out of five stories told in my, um, particular style. Even the guitar is mine, although it only has five strings because I used the high E to floss my toes whilst high on envelope glue. You know. LIKE YOU DO.

My latest empublishment is a story called If You Were The Only Boy In The World, which I will read at this Wednesday's Bad Language birthday bash. The story can be found in their new anthology, to be launched screaming at the public on the same night.

And after that, I'll do something stupid at Say Something. An event a week. That's my plan. And if you want the full Fat Roland fiction treatment and you can provide a good audience, I'll do a 20 minute set for you.

Meanwhile, do pop your nose into the Manchester literature "scene". Some say it is somewhat self-regarding, but that's why we did the Beatoff Generation manifesto. It's welcoming and open and a lot of fun: why else would a natural outsider like me be involved.

I'll leave you with some lovely words about Bad Language, who have done so much to support new talent in this city. Katie Anderson writes about her literary open mic performance there (a story "sort of about ghosts, but not really", which is the best kind of ghost story), while Aaron Gow recalls his first stage performance at Bad Language as being "slightly addictive".

A year, a week and a day is a long time at Fat Roland towers. Here's to the next arbitrarily-chosen-time-period-because-it-was-meant-to-be-a-one-year-anniversary-but-I-forgot-until-now.

Richard Whiteley: off my anus

2011-11-21T19:32:00.001Z

My computer exploded.

Imagine the 1996 Manchester bomb, but smaller and inside a power unit.

You may think that is an insensitive comparison, but there were 15 handsome badgers working the innards of that machine. Now my writing room is wallpapered with animal brains and wiry black and white hair.

The hair may have been there before.

I'm hoping the Nice Computer Man can save my machine. As long as he stays away from the folder marked Compromising Photographs Of Denuded Biscuits, I should be okay.

The worst thing about this calamatous event is how much I'm missing my music. Someone played me a bit of Laughable Butane Bob today and I nearly orgasmed into his cappuccino. The only thing I have left on CD are Echobelly's Greatest Hits, that collaboration between The Kooks and Kraftwerk, and Tina Turner tribute band The Nutbush City Mimicks.

I'm not sure if those CDs even exist. I'm not sure of anything any more.

The positive side of being computerless is I got off my anus yesterday and had a lovely Sunday lunch. From now on, this blog will be dedicated to lovely Sunday lunches. Cooked by Wetherspoons. In exchange for £6.99, or £8.49 if you want inexplicable cauliflower cheese with it.

I went for the cauliflower cheese. This is my new life. My new computer-less life.

(PS - if you want to see me read an interative story about Richard Whiteley, come to a night called Exhibit C tomorrow. I may do three stories, each obsessed with the idea of celebrity.)

Bezerking automaton: ReTale happens this Thursday

2011-11-14T22:36:00.001Z

Six writers. Six stories. One shop.

Next up in the wonderful world of Fat Roland Making It Up As He Goes Along is a unique site-specific story evening called ReTale.

This Thursday, November `17th, my good self and five of m'colleagues will perform six brand new stories in the Triangle shopping centre, or more specifically, in the ladies clothing shop Jigsaw.

With ReTale, we hope to bring a little bit of theatrical nous to the imprecise art of live fiction performance. My fellow performers are the irrepressible Bad Language gang, my Flashtag cohort Dave Hartley and mumblin' Nick Garrard.

My story will contain this line:

“He wants to remove her empty skull above its equator, sit inside the recess then ride her around like some bezerking automaton.”

It starts at 7.30pm sharp and there will be drinkies. Grab your tickets now, or risk it and pay on the door.

And if you don't like our stories, you could always pick up yourself a little silk ballet dress. Red. Off the shoulder. It'll look nice on you.

Fat Roland at Blank Space, November 13th 2011

2011-11-12T18:12:00.001Z

As a tribute to the contents of my head, the name "Blank Space" seems a suitable place for a Fat Roland performance.

So join me tomorrow at Blank Media Collective's fifth birthday celebrations where I will be spewing 20 minutes of my half-brewed pot of fiction stew. It all kicks off from 4pm on Sunday at Blank Space in Hulme.

They're aiming for a speak-easy vibe, with spoken word, poetry and music courtesy of any old sops that turn up to the open mic. Why not be a sop yourself and come and take to the stage? Some time before 7pm, I will headline proceedings along with performance poet and installation artist Rebecca Joy Sharp.

I'm billed as "spoken word", which is an anodyne phrase which is a bit like saying "sounds like Coldplay". Then again, I dislike the phrase "flash fiction", but if it's a wording I've got to wear to persuade you to turn up and listen, then pass me the tattooist needle.

It's my first proper fiction set. From me, you can expect comedy, horror, sadness and my first ever performance with a guitar. It's all hosted by the lovely Blank Pages, who were kind enough to publish my scribblings recently.

I got the pop song, I got the melody

2011-11-02T19:10:00.000Z

Earworms.

I think that's what they call them. Earworms are those snippets of melody that lodge themselves in the tissue of your brain.

At the moment, I have a merry-go-round of cacophony in my head. Part of the noise is a disco record that I can't quite put my finger on. It may be the Jackson 5. There's a bit of Womack and Womack in there too. It then morphs into Sydney Youngblood's If Only I Could. He's a cheery German Texan who raised the ire of dance music rival Soul II Soul back in the late 1980s with his chippy cheerful rip-off soul pop.

But not the chorus of If Only I Could. Oh no. Just the start of the verse and the few bars leading up to that.

Which is my problem with earworms. The sign of a good producer or songwriter is their ability to make even the innocuous bits of the song sound as amazing as the obvious hooky bits. Everyone from Trevor Horn to Timbaland is good at this, and it means that a wriggly little earworm can crawl from anywhere in the deep depths of popular music and surprise you with its catchy little hooky teeth.

What I'm saying is, really, that there's too much melody out there. It would be nice for everyone to have a lovely chorus, something-- y'know-- really smashing, and for the rest of the song to be a tuneless, forgettable dirge. It worked for the likes of Echobelly, Oasis, Aliyah, U2 and pretty much any artist beginning with a vowel.

East 17. Adele. Elbow. Every artist beginning with a vowel. Every single one. It works. Try it.

The only way to rid your mind of an earworm is to scoop your cranium empty with the digger your Uncle Dave nicked from the local university building works last Tuesday. Or have a reputable pop impressario such as Gary Glitter, jonathan King or Michael Jackson's corpse do one of those worm-charming things on your skull and tap your bonce incessantly with a long stick.

I call them earworms. What do you call them? What's in your head right now? Am I just asking this to give the impression of interactivity on this blog? Yes. I'm not interested, so bog off. Unless you want to sing me a song in the comments. A lovely, smashing uncatchy song.

Fat Roland On Electronica: dramatic announcement

2011-10-11T23:58:00.000+01:00

Woah there, pickle.

I only started taking my fiction writing seriously because the man from 330 Words saw some toothpaste at the Manchester Blog Awards and insisted I write a story about it.

Today's special commendation from the Manchester Fiction Prize is in some ways my proudest moment yet (see more on my fiction blog) and has placed a little solid nugget in my mind (probably made from chicken) that tells me yes I am a fiction writer and yes it's okay to make up stuff and call it "work". Thank you, little chicken nugget of wisdom.

Which leads me on to the announcement I had teased you with at the end of this post.

As I concentrate more on my fiction noodling, it's quite likely Fat Roland On Electronica will suffer. It has become the runt of my writing litter, albeit a cute runt with fabulous eyelashes. Which is a shame because Fat Roland Dot Com The Domain Name will be ten years old in February.

And so it only seems fair to show this website some love. It is my intention early next year to produce a book of this blog.

The paper-drizzled book version of this blog will be as in thrall to the cult ofAphex Twin as much as to the full horror of Justin Biebpipe.Scrawled in the pages within, you will find numerous giddy joys: selected writings from the blog itself beefed up by extensive footnotes written exclusively for the book; plenty of new blatherings about buffalo, music and kettles; original illustrations, by which I mean mad scribblings drawn with the ear wax of a cat; assorted lists, puzzles and other pointless distractions; and finally, a complete glossary of stupid terms so you too can sound intelligent about electronic music whilst secretly being a moron.

If you are a publisher and you would like to publish this (ahem, hello publishers, AHEM), then get in touch. But in any case, it will happen and you will buy it. Right? Right?

This nuggety runt just got its game on.

The Tory tweets part two: Bring Your Pet To Conference Day

2011-10-11T07:01:00.003+01:00

I find myself at the Tory party conference, which is very similar to a business conference except they know the business is bust and the man who runs the defence department has given all the revenue to his mates.

This is my ongoing story, told through tweets, of a wishy-lefty washy running a bookshop at a right-wing event. Surrounded, incidentally, by the Boris 'brand' everywhere. Click to read part one. This is part two. Stay tuned for part three.

"Another day of Tories. Yesterday can be summarised as a bunch of people in suits and bad hair that don't know please, thanks or excuse me.The founder of MORI delighted me with stories. And we had a 'gay Tory' event (no, really). One woman bought Mandelson's book because she wanted to 'understand evil'. She was in every way a spitting image of Margaret Thatcher."

"I have five book signings today at the conference, including the aforesaid Jeremy Paxman (who is actually lovely)."

With a busy day ahead, I was feeling quite confident. A bit like a Christian looking at a photograph of a kitten in the Colosseum and thinking, "oh THAT'S a lion."

In fact, let's stick with animal analogies, shall we?

"Everyone's much nicer today at the Tories. Yesterday was like wading through dead puppies.Well. I say everyone. Some people are nicer. Mainly the dead puppies because they're not being waded through any more.WHAT AM I SAYING? My brain's turning to Tory mush..."

"It's Bring Your Pet To Conference Day today at the Tory conference. A surprising number of blue animals. Like... um.... blue whales 'n' shit.

"Hey, stop tweeting me #dogfacts. I hate dogs. If I have to think about them *and* Tories, I may cry.I am having my lunch. The conference is affecting me. I have a headache and a growing dislike of minorities.(By 'minorities', I mean 'Tories in Manchester', obvs.)"

It was a slow start to the day, hence...

"I'VE JUST SEEN A TORY DWARF."

...and...

"I am doing a poo at the Tory Conference.The first plop came out in the shape of Ann Widdecombe.Ooo, here's a second one.Jeffrey Archer....Vince Cable?!I have just laid a cable. A vince cable."

..and...

"Eek, David Davis is talking about lotion."

...and...

"Sorry I'm not replying to many tweets. I'm writing love poetry to David Cameron. What rhymes with 'nuzzle'?"

Muzzle, obviously.

My colleagues who had run set-up had nestled some Tony Benn books on the shelf, which by good fortune was in the exact place where cameras would film the book signings. And believe me, there were cameras everywhere. Events like this, whatever the party, is as much about media image as it is about motivating your troops.

I couldn't move without finding myself in someone's shot:

"I got stopped coming into the Tory conference for carrying coins. Of course I'm carrying coins. I'm selling books.Other items possibly considered dangerous at the Tory conference: clothes, hands, air."

"Oh crap, a TV camera has just filmed me. I'm sorry I said bad things about clothes and hands and air."

I even received tweets about being on the telly: "You're on the telly. And you're selling a book. Money has changed hands. Congratulations."

"The Graun have just interviewed me, wanting to know the successes (Kwasi Karteng) and turkeys (Assange).Oh dear."

In fact, some Tories couldn't cope with Kwasi Karteng. They don't like foreigners, you see. And Karteng is very foreign, being an Etonian, a Surrey MP and, oh hold on...

"Crikes. "Have you got that book by the man with a Korean name. Totally unpronounceable." That'll be Kwasi Karteng, then.So sheltered. This conference is one big head stuck in a big cloud."

Korea. West Africa. Eton. It's all the same. Bless.

Anyhoo, we did a signing with various MPs, including Kwasi (who I'm pretty sure is responsible for spilling coffee over one of my books, harrumph). The highlight, however, had to be Sir Paxman Of Newsnight who I had persuaded to do a last-minute book signing.

Boy, he was hard work. He withers in his spare time and, while always witty, personable and intelligent (I'd do another signing with him tomorrow if given the chance), his batteries still fire away when the rest of us have ground to a halt. His banter with the book-buying public was priceless.

"My book is so good, you should buy ten copies: some for your family and five or six for you. In fact, let's make it 15."

"I have one leg shorter than the other by about an inch and a half."

"You want to go to Newcastle and be hung upside down? Yes, brilliant idea."

"Are you going to tell me what underwear you're wearing?"

"The quotes earlier today were from the university challenged Sir Jezbo of Paxmania, all taken out of context from his book signing."

We ran out of books (understandable considering the signing wasn't planned) and so we had a little argument about that because Paxman was unhappy.

So I leave Part Two of this series with a couple of final tweets from the day.

Still to come is my attendance at an alarming fringe event and, as promised on my previous post, a truly scatalogical moment which represents more about the Tory party than even its critics would be prepared to accept. No, me having a poo further up this post wasn't it.

Oh and I must tell you how the Theresa May cat moment increased our sales.

"I managed to rile Jeremy Paxman today. I accept full responsibility if he's being more withering than normal with Boris on Newsnight!"

"My bookshop was on Newsnight, apparently. Hopefully it wasn't the bit when I was playing Twister with Michael Gove. (He has warm thighs.)"

Click to read part one. This is part two. Stay tuned for part three.

The Tory tweets part one: the moon rises in Uranus

2011-10-10T06:48:00.000+01:00

When I was thrown into the jaws of the Tory party two years ago (with hilarious consequences), you'd think I wouldn't go back for more.

Yet, the moon rose in Uranus as the stars decided that this week I would meet tall, dark, be-suited, blue-badged strangers. Once more, I was their official bookseller.

Here is my Tory story in tweets. This is part one. Click to read part two.

"Right then, twums. Tomorrow, I will be at the Tory #cpc11 conference. Expect numerous bitter / sarcastic / funny tweets on Monday and Tuesday.I am warning you now so that you're ready for an increase in my tweeting and you're ready to be offended if you're a Tory.You're not a Tory, are you? Are you a hot Tory? Hot Tories confuse me. "

It has always been an ugly anachronism that the Tories choose to dump their annual shindig right in the middle of Manchester, mere yards from the site of the Battle of Peterloo in which the authorities mowed down poor workers and helped coalesce left wing protest for the next two hundred years.

"Many people inside #cpc11 confused as to why people were shouting "Tory scum" at them today. Seriously.I must admit, it's confusing grammatically. I find all tautologies confusing grammatically. "

That didn't stop me, however, producing for them one of the best temporary political bookshops in the country for the four days they are camped in our beloved city. You have to remember that most people at the conference are not true blues, but are workers, media, other politicians and the like. It's just a good job I had Twitter through which to vent my rage.

"If you don't want to read me snotting on about Tories a lot, then unfollow me for a couple of days.Having said that, it's unlikely to be different from my normal snotting. Just a bit more frequent. I'm going to runny-nose your feed.

"I should also point out I'll probably hit 1,000 followers today half way through me tweeting a complicated Eric Pickles sexual fantasy,This isn't going to be pretty. (Unlike Eric.)"

With my followers fully forewarned, I entered the conference to discover a much more professional affair than two years ago. This is the party of government, so no silly blue phone boxes or people dressed up in costumes this time.

I am at the Tory conference. It is everything I hoped for and more.They've upgraded the Gordon Brown pork pie stand to an Ed Miliband jerk chicken stand.

And here come the celebrities...

I've just breathed cheesy crisp breath into Jeremy Paxman's face. Don't think he noticed.I'll upgrade to prawn cocktail next time.

Paxman called me an incompetent bookseller.

Jeremy Paxman would become a key part of this year's bookshop. He (or his people) had decided not to do a book signing, so when he turned up to the shop, I managed to pin him down. He would do a signing. And it would be one of the most exhausting moments of the conference. More of that later.

Everyone who's everyone is here. There's a Tory with massive testicles (bad trousers). And there's Nick Robinson.

Hitchens. *shudder*

There are less shouty motivational posters this year. But Oliver Letwin's here with 'kill the poor' tattooed on his forehead, so that's OK.

All of this is in good humour from a wishy-washy leftie. What could possibly go wrong? My job was to run a successful bookshop and I was going to succeed? Wasn't I?

My anti-Tory ire was barely beginning to bubble. And to make it worse, things were about to get somewhat scatological in one of the most illuminating, and disgusting, moments of the conference.#

This is part one. Click to read part two.

30 tusks, 25 blogs, 5 votes

2011-09-29T23:09:00.000+01:00

Because I won Miss World or something at last year's Manchester Blog Awards, I get to be a judge this year. Imagine American Idol's Randy Jackson melded with 15 dead walrii. Yes, walrii. That's me.

The shortlist, for which you should be voting in your droves even as you read this sentence, is intimidating because there is so much good stuff in there. I only found out recently I'd be judging, so I've had to swill my buckets of dripping bitterness down the drain of perfectly balanced pragmatism and instead adopt a clear decision-making head.

I am now practising a mature opinion about everything. Thus:

- A lot of Orbital's stuff is excellent, but some other bits don't half go on a bit;

- Production techniques in r'n'b often set the tone for all sorts of music in the future in the same way the Nazis were good at car building, but that doesn't stop me even now from envying the production in Cry Me A River;

- Hooded tops are a wonderful way to express the rave culture of my youth, although they make me look a bit like 15 dead walrii;

- Some songs with guitars in can be good, while others can be bad;

- Some other things are good while some other things are bad. You should be getting the point of this list by now.

Short of setting fire to the internet and deciding the winner from the last blog standing, I don't know how I can judge the shortlist. But I'll have a go and I'll enjoy it immensely.

Not that winning last year did anything to my stats other than make me so busy, I've let this blog go a bit. Just look at the stats:

I did some writing, and then I did some more writing. This was in the days when everything was rosy and puppies frolicked in metaphorical fields. Fat Roland On Electronica got as many as four readers, then look: I won the award and suddenly I'm at minus one and, as you can see from the extrapolation above, things are set to get totally walrus.

15 hoodied walrii feasting off the corpses of frolickless puppies. Do you want that, dear reader? Yes you do, so get voting in the Manchester Blog Awards. Your votes get combined with judges votes and then we all have a massive booze up later in October.

Quickies: Short Stories For Adults

2011-09-27T22:45:00.000+01:00

Flashtag writers: fancy a quick 'un?

2011-09-21T16:11:00.001+01:00

After I've trodded the boards with my #flashtag writing gang at Bad Shoes Festival this Sunday (there we are in the 2pm slot), I get to release a book.

We Flashtag writers, last seen running the Flash Mob Writing Competition, have produced an anthology of dirty stories.

Quickies has 30 authors, 72 pages and a gaudy lilac cover. Read more about its production over at my fiction blog, Italic Eyeball.

We'll host the launch of the book on Wednesday 28th September for Didsbury Arts Festival. Go to the Arts Festival website for more details... although do get there early as I suspect we'll fill the venue.

I'll be reading, probably, a strange situation piece called Slow Movement, Hard Plastic.

And then you get to buy the book. We'll even do a Kindle version. More details soon.

Which brings me to another point. FatRoland dot com is ten years old in a few months. I intend to do something special to mark the occasion. Curious? You should be. *walks off, whistling innocently*

Teebs, Babe Rainbow and Ital Tek tattooed onto a pop star's innards

2011-09-21T08:07:00.001+01:00

I barely wordpuke about electronic jams in this here netspace, even though the whole reason for this website is to delare the word of the beat, of the resonance filter, of the wob-wob-wob.

Instead, I'm either banging on about pop music (OMG JUSTIN BIEBPIPE GOT A TATTOO OF POL POT ON HIS LARGE INTESTINE OMG) or simply not posting at all. This, lovely reader, is not good enough.

So what has been performing syncopated rhythms on my ear drums?

Teebs (pictured) has joined Soundcloud, which is about bloody time because I'm fed up of searching for the deadlocked skate dude on there and not finding him. Seriously. Just last weekend, I couldn't find him so had to punch Soundcloud in the face yet again. His first track posted there is about a year old, but it's sunny and dancy and deserves an embed below.

Anchor Steam by teebsio

Speaking of ambient jams that wouldn't look out of place spread over Brian Eno's bald head, I do believe I haven't told you about Babe Rainbow's Set Loose from his Endless Path EP. It's simple and sad and deserves repeat clicks.

Babe Rainbow - "Set Loose" taken from Endless Path EP - OUT NOW by Warp Records

Also, Brighton's Ital Tek (or iTAL tEK or iTaL tEk or whatever his shift key is doing on any one day) has teamed up with London's Om Unit. Mr Unit, as it's only polite to call him, has been known to make music in the back of an RV before now. His pairing with Ital Tek is a persistent little bugger: a remix of Mr Tek's War Of The Ants. I'm having those tiddlywink snare effects tattooed on a pop star's pancreas.

Ital tek - war of the ants (om unit remix) Coming Soon (Atom River) by omunit

Five-point Manchester survival guide for freshers

2011-09-18T22:54:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the straggly-haired slaughter, you fresh-faced lambs. Here is the official Fat Roland guide to being a fresher.

You arrived in Manchester today lugging your duvet under your spindly arms after doing that passive-aggressive eye thing as you left your parents behind for good. You have chosen the right city: Manchester invented computers, music, politics, card games and the Nintendo Wii.;

But how do you survive in the Northern capital that also brought the world Madchester drug casualties, murderous Hacienda bouncers and, shudder, more than a few members of the BeeGees?

One. You need to know where to hang out. One wrong move, and you'll be bundled into an alley and piddled on by a tramp. These are the only places you should hang out in your first year of university: your halls, the Student's Union, anything with a Wetherspoon's logo, Tib Street, Ancoats and, after two in the morning, Deansgate train station.

Two. You have to listen to the right music. Generally, if it's got a guitar and sounds needy, it's middle-class pseudo-angst and you might as well get minute Laura Marling faces tattooed on your nipples. If it's got keyboards and the players of the keyboard sport cool hair, it could be hipster, in which case you might as well hang out at Common Bar in a cloud of your own farts. Any other kind of music is acceptable.

Three. Don't get in my way. Don't use buses. Don't walk down streets. Don't sit in bars, although if you really have to, for goodness sake don't talk. Only go to the cinema on Orange Wednesdays because that's exactly the day I don't go to the cinema. Do come into my bookshop and buy some books, but only if you're fit / cute / might be fit when you're 25.

Four. Catch as many diseases as you can, and ensure you pass them on to as many Manchester residents as possible. Illness reduces crime (and let's be honest, you're going to get robbed blind in those shoddy student digs), boosts immune systems, and I really like laughing at people thinking their world's going to end because they've got a cold. Yes, women, you do it too. Incidentally, I don't intend to catch the cold virus ever again, so this doesn't affect me. You get extra points for sexual diseases, especially if picked up on the dance floor of 5th Avenue / Cruz 101 / the Christian Union Christmas party.

And finally, five. Don't use anything digital. Unplugged is cool and preserves the 1950s culture in which Manchester truly thrives. You don't think the Happy Mondays used electricity, did you? It was all done with tooth 'n' comb and a kazoo doused in liquid LSD. Ditch your modern appliances. Buy your singles on seven inch. Get proper books. Wash your clothes using poorly-dressed maidens in a scullery. If you need to learn something, go to a library or ask a busker. And stay off blogs, because the amount of effluence dripping from their so-called good advice guides would be enough to turn Doctor Crippin's stomach.

New students: welcome to Manchester. We gave you M People, Dolly Parton and Kraftwerk. (Probably, I dunno.) Now what are you going to give back?

See also: my top 20 Manchester albums of all time (2009)
See also: my students' guide to new music (2010)

They catch me in the beer tent, you sound the alarm

2011-09-03T22:31:00.001+01:00

DJing in a beer tent at Greenbelt Arts Festival is probably the best fun you could have with your trousers on your head.

I've been going to Greenbelt almost every year for the past 20 years. It's my spiritual and artistic home and it's even Mark Thomas' second-favourite festival.

This year, I had two DJing slots in the Jesus Arms organic ale tent, which gave me the chance to do a dark set (techno and IDM on the Saturday night) and a light set (ambient and 4/4 beats on the Monday night). My co-DJ Dan flipped things in a different direction with the likes of Desmond Dekker and Prince.

Being in such close proximity to beer attracted the usual punter comments:

- Have you got any Beatles?

- Have you got any Abba?

- Have you got anything with a tune?

That last comment, dear readers, really means "have you got anything that I recognise" because most people want spoon-feeding with the same old mulch. It's a minority view, so I didn't compromise: back-to-back Autechre tracks were a personal highlight.

The picture shows the free software we used to DJ with. A massive thanks to Dan (who really needs a snazzy DJ name, like DJ Dan The Destroyobot or something) who not only brought proper good choons but also brought the kit to make it all work.

Purple tins and Co-op: where the hell is Fat Roland?

2011-08-25T09:20:00.000+01:00

The time has finally come to nudge me off my bloggy throne back into the pits of well-deserved obscurity, for the Manchester Blog Awards are now open for nominations.

Last year's accolade, in which I shared a couple of gongs alongside some truly smashing blogs, astronauted me scream-first into the spaceosphere: people suddenly wanted me to *do* stuff. I'. sure, once I can no longer call myself "blogger of the year", it'll be back to the purple tins and sitting outside the Co-op.

But I have been busy. For example, I will perform my umpteenth fiction reading at Manchester's leading literary shindig Bad Language this Wednesday, August 31st. I'm hugely grateful for Bad Language's support: they have been the driving force behind my newly-discovered love of short story writing.

And don't forget the wonderfully-named Bad Shoes Festival on September 25th in Chorlton. Bad Shoes is a joint mission between Bad Language and that temple of gorgeousness, Shoestring Magazine. At the festival, I'll join the Flashtag Writers for a fiction reading of sorts. Ah, the Flashtag gang. It seems like an eternity since we congealed our efforts around this stupendously stupid blog post last November.

Oh, that reminds me. We're doing a book. We're doing a disgusting book of smutty stories for Didsbury Arts Festival. Quickes: Stories For Adults in in the editing / typesetting phase and features work by us, by specially commissioned writers and by general submissions. We're going to launch it on September 28th, and it would be great if you could come-- er-- be there.

What else? I'm bound to miss something. I've resurrected by photograph microfiction thingy blog Fatotograf. Me and a few Sanctus 1 chums will be giving out fish this weekend in a new short story experiment. I ran a fun blog workshop for Full Circle Arts and Blank Media. My coming out story is the subject of an Art With Heat project for Manchester Pride (yes, I'm in that video!). You can find me DJing on Saturday and Monday nights at the Greenbelt Arts Festival. There's stuff going on with Manchester Science Festival, but it's not quite announceable yet. And I am currently uploading a few 100-character stories over at Italic Eyeball.

Oh and to take my mind off all of the above, I just wrote this. Like I said. Astronaut. Screams. Spaceosphere.

All Warp Records stock destroyed in Sony / PIAS fire

2011-08-11T15:08:00.002+01:00

I had been chiselling out a blog post about the Sony DADC warehouse fire that claimed the stock of scores of independent record labels in the UK, including Warp Records.

Today, Warp issued a statement on how the fire, caused by the London riots, had affected them. It was not good news.

"All of Warp's UK stock appears to have been lost in the fire," say Warp.

Read that again. Horrible.

"The Sony DADC warehouse also acted as our international distribution hub and so this has affected our ability to supply our overseas partners."

They go on to state that forthcoming released by Grizzly Bear offshoot CANT (as obtuse a name as !!!), uber knob-twonk Rustie and techno veterans Plaid will go ahead, but that funtime high-cymballed beat combo Battles may have to cope with a digital-only version of their next single My Machines.

Label Love is a campaign to raise cash for the many labels affected by the blaze. There is one event already scheduled, and I hope Manchester can organise something similar. PIAS, who sub-contract the warehouse, have also teamed up with the Association of Independent Music to support those affected.

But the worry is not just financial.

"The biggest challenge for us," continues the statement, "is replacing Warp's extensive back catalogue spanning the last 21 years. We will replace as much of this as we can by creating new stock and replenishing where possible with stock from outside the UK. Unfortunately some releases may never be available physically again."

"We will be closely supporting PIAS in their efforts to get the independent music community up and running as quickly as they can."

There's not much else to say. My planned blog post, full of theoretical blatherings about the wider affect of the fire and the riots, has been thrown into the bin. All that remains is a deep sadness for Warp Records and the effect of this incident on the legacy that has fed this blog for years.

Not just Warp, either, of course. A full list of labels follows in small print.

All that, before we even get to the human tragedy of the stupid, stupid riots. What a sad few days.

-----

[PIAS] Recordings, [PIAS] Recordings Belgium, 4AD, A Camp, Absynthe Minded, Accidental, AEI Music, Air Recordings, ALC Music, Alsation, Ambush Reality, Ancient & Modern, Angular Recording Corporation, Arcady Records, Ark Recordings, Asthmatic Kitty Records, Atlantic Jaxx Recordings, Bad Magic, Balling The Jack, Banquet Records, Battered Ornaments Records, Beggars Banquet, Best Before, Big Brother, Big Dada, Bird Records, Blackmaps, Bloody Chamber, Blowout Music, Blue Chopsticks, Border Community, Borstal Beats, Boysnoize Records, BPM, Brainfeeder, Brassland, Bright Star Recordings, Brille, Broken Sound Music, Bronzerat, Brothers and Sisters, Brownswood Recordings, Buzzin’ Fly, Cache Cache, Cadenza Records, Celluloid Records, Chalkmark / IE, Chemikal Underground Records, Cocoon, Control Tower, Counter Records, Dance To The Radio, Dead Oceans, Deceptive, Defenders, Ent UK, DESOLAT, Dessous, Different, Dirtee Stank, Divine Comedy Records, Domino Records, Double Six Records, Drag City, Dreambrother, Drive Thru Records, Drowned In Sound, Dummy Records, Duophonic, Eat Sleep Records, Fabric Worldwide, Fake Diamonds, FantasyTrashcan, Fatcat Records, Fence, Feraltone, Finders Keepers Records, Flock Music, Flying Circus, Freerange Records, Friends Vs Records, Full Pupp, Full Time Hobby, Gang Of Four Recordings, Geographic, Ghost Ship, Glaze Recordings, Groenland Records, G-Unit, Hardly Art, Hassle Records, Helpless, Hem Hem Records, HFN Music, Immune, Independiente, Infant, Infectious, Jagjaguwar, Kartel, Kitchenware, Kitsune, KMS Records / Fabric, Laughing Stock, Lex Records, Lipservice, Little Sister Recordings, LO-MAX Records, Loose Music, Lovepump United, Low Life Records, Lucky Number Music, Lucky Seven Records, Mantra, Matador, Memphis Industries, Merok, Metric Music International, Metroline Limited, Model Citizen, Moikai, Motion Audio, MyMajorLabel Ltd, Nation, Ninja Tune, No Quarter, NovaMute, Nusic Sounds, One Four Seven Records Ltd, One Little Indian, Organs, Outcaste, OVNI, P.I.L., Peartree, Records, PeMa, People In The Sky, People Tree, Pirates Blend Records Inc, Planet Function, Play It Again Sam, Playlouder, Poker Flat, Polyvinyl, Records, Poseidon Records, Post Present, Pschent, Raw Canvas, Red Cord Records, REK’D, Rekids, Rekords Rekords, Renaissance, Reveal Records, Riverman Records, Rock Action Records, Roots Records, Rough Trade Records, Rubyworks, Sea Note, Search and Destroy, Secretly Canadian, Setanta, Shape, SideOneDummy Records, Silva Screen, Slam Dunk Records, Smekkleysa, Soma, Sonic Cathedral, Soul Jazz Records, South Paw, Southern Fried Records, Stereo Bang Media, Stolen Recordings, Stranger Records, Streamline, Sub Pop, Suicide Squeeze, Sunday Best, Thrill Jockey, Tirk, Too Pure, Torque Records, Touch & Go Records, Transmission Recordings, Tri Tone, Trouble Records, True Panther, Try Harder, Turnstile, Twisted Nerve Recordings, Universal Sound, Victory Records, Wagram, Wall of Sound, Warp, Watergate, We Love You, Wiiija, Willkommen Records Ltd, Wonderfulsound, XL, Xtra Mile Recordings, Yaala Yaala, Young Turks

-----

"Short of performing a skiffle set on the grass, we were going to have to pull the show."

2011-08-07T23:32:00.006+01:00

Edit: the following attack has been resolved and Murkage's original post has been taken down.

I still think this is a fascinating attack on a festival by a band, and so don't intend to remove this blog post. However, a clarification was posted in the comments by Anonymous (thank you, Anonymous). The text of this follows.

To respect the SEO aspect of this blog post, I have edited out the name of the guy Murkage wrote about. His name has been blanked from my blog post and from Anonymous's response (which is also why I've had to delete Anonymous's comment).

It should be pointed out that Murkage retained respect for Cloud 9 throughout all of this and there is no question that Cloud 9 clearly rocks. They just had a problem with one person.

Anonymous's comment: "____ ____ issued a public apology to Murkage for any upset that he caused.

"Just to clarify Hannah Cox is the promoter for Cloud 9 Festival and the band were dealt with by her in a professional manner throughout the event as they pointed out on their post. Following a series of emails between Hannah and the Artist this blog post was taken down. While I would decline to further comment on the contents of the article it should be made clear that ____ ____ as a volunteer for Cloud 9 was in no way responsible for Murkage not performing at Cloud 9 this year.

"'Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.'
Gilbert K. Chesterton"

Being a promoter must be the worst job in the world. Worse than working in sewers or being a bomb disposal officer or doing Cher Lloyd's PR.

When Manchester DJ and production crew Murkage (pictured) turned up at Cheshire's Cloud 9 festival, it seems the stage set-up wasn't to their requirements. They pulled out. And that would be the end of the story. Annoyed band, peeved promoter, life goes on.

Except...

The Murkage cartel launched an astonishing assault on the artist booker of the Cloud 9 festival after the stage mess-up, calling him a moron, rude and, um, unable to think beyond his genitals.

I don't know Murkage. I don't know the promoter in question, ____ ____ . It could all be guff.

But it makes for brilliant reading. It's worth taking in the whole thing, mainly because I never knew there was a spirit called Jeremiah Weed, but here are some edited highlights:

"The organisers had tried to put us in a tent which didn't have an actual stage. If you've seen us live before you'll know our show is made up of four vocalists, a DJ and sometimes a drummer. We're still baffled as to how they thought this was going to work...

"We realised that short of performing a skiffle set on the grass, we were going to have to pull the show...

"We would also like to take this opportunity to name a guy called ____ ____ as one of the rudest, most unprofessional, misplaced egos we have ever come across since we started doing music... "

Ahem. Allegedly.

"Sorting out the staging issue would have take approximately ten minutes maximum... we can only assume that ____ ____ simply didn't want us to play the festival for his own reasons..."

Here comes the fried gold.

"When did it start being ok for absolute morons to make decisions on anything at all..."

Miaow.

Egoistes like that dude should stick to being professionally cool, taking drugs and generally being part of the scene furniture, leave running festivals to the grown ups please...

"The inability to think beyond the end of ones penis should remain a barrier to entry when it comes to running festivals no matter how small in scale and, it's [bleeped out: probably libellous] like ____ ____ who give promoters a bad name..."

Except it's not gold, is it?

Whoever was to blame, it seems we have players in Manchester's music scene with teeth drawn and no intention to back down.

When Manchester starts biting itself, all you get are rotting chunks of flesh instead of a dancing, thriving scene. I hope this ____ ____ fella can patch things up with Murkage, I really do. Because Murkage's parting shot does not bode well:

"If we have learned anything over the years its this; piss on artists when they are on the way up and they will shit on you from on high."

Annoyed band, peeved promoter. Consider the defecation process complete.

Elegantly wasted: time for birthday drinks!

2011-08-02T14:23:00.006+01:00

Ten reasons why my forthcoming birthday will rock harder than a stone that has detached itself from the rest of the ground around it:

1. It means I will now be older than Michael Hutchence.

2. Time waits for no man. Many a mickle makes a muckle. Them's the breaks.

3. If you slice me open and count my rings, my innards display something resembling either Jesus Christ, Osama Bin Laden or Cheryl Cole.

4. I have been teetotal for four and a half months. My birthday is when I start drinking again. This alone will give people reason to be entertained on the night.

5. If you add my birth year to this year's date then subtract the two central numbers from the squares of themselves, you unlock the code that opens up the Indian burial ground hidden beneath this blog.

6. This year, Woody Allen will be only twice as old as me. Coincidentally, I am half as Jewish and four times funnier than him.*

7. It is one step closer to completing my plan for world domination, if by "rapid deterioration of basic cognitive functions" means "world domination".

8. This time last year I was somewhat ill, having had my innards scooped out by the NHS and sold at Christies. This year, I am stronger, faster, pussycat, kill kill.

9. Er...

10. ...that's it.

My birthday drinks will happen at Common Bar in Manchester on the evening of Saturday August 13th. Friends and followers of this blog are welcome to come along.

Here's a bigger version of that pic, above.

* I lie, of course. I am not funny.

My new Twitter background is dedicated to Murdoch

2011-07-30T22:10:00.001+01:00

I'd had enough of Barack Obama as my Twitter background. Since he and the Republicans are about to destroy the world with their bickering, I thought I would change it to someone of much greater repute.

Rupert Murdoch (and, by extension, his son Little Jimmy Murdoch) is not only content to smash his way into the phones of murdered skeletons and orphans that are on fire: he has also stolen half of F1 in a decision so monumentally bad, it makes the poll tax, Battlefield Earth and dick-house act LMFAO seem like the most naturally wonderful things ever. More about formula one on Darksphere.

Anyway, here's a yellow Murdoch being a heat-crazed cowboy. I hope he falls off a cliff and gets raped by the sea.

A piffling statistical analysis of the 27-club

2011-07-25T15:49:00.003+01:00

This week, we lost a talented singer because there is something built into human nature that means, sometimes, the power of addiction is stronger than the power to survive.

I don't want to write a blog post about Amy Winehouse. guy_interrupted has already nailed it in words, while Paul Gambaccini has bottled it perfectly on a BBC video despite appearing to be in the middle of a nasty upper-lip infection.

What I want to do is focus on is the response. Or rather, a little thing that happened amid the torrent of tweets that either paid tribute to Amy Winehouse or, oddly, slagged off those paying tribute to Amy Winehouse because the slaggers thought their own tribute was more worthy.

Many people on the netosphere took offence that people were declaring that Amy had joined the 27-club. That's the elite list of rock stars that died aged 27. It seemed trite to mention a piffling statistic, they said. And yes, it is trite.

And disrespectful.

But since you are reading a blog that came up with the Bri Chart, an analysis of Boring Pauls, a point-by-point comparison of Karen O and Brian Eno and an admittedly impressive list of crowd-sourced Aphex Twin animal puns, and since I've never been too concerned about crowd-pleasing on this festering corner of the interweb, I might as well analyse the 27-club claim.

For more sensitive readers, this may turn out to be too scientific for your feeble brains. I advise you to switch off your computer now and lie down in a dark room.

Firstly, I need good stats. I should look no further than a King James Bible fan site called 'av1611' that tries to demonstrate that rock stars "DIE in youth, and their life is among the unclean" because "their rock is not our Rock".

They have a massive chart of rock star deaths that shows the average age of rock star death is less than half that of the average American death rate. It's pretty convincing.

The fact that a musician who became a teen rock star in the 1960s isn't old enough yet to reach the American mean survival age is a triviality of which, I suspect, their God would not approve.

And so there's Johnny Ace, the Youngest Rock Star Ever To Die. Suicide at 25. You remember Johnny Ace, yeah? He played trombone in the Bluetones or something.

And then there's Frank Zappa, the Oldest Rock Star Ever To Die. Cancer at 52. Or, as the site would insist, 'Wages Of Sin' at 52.

This is science. Pay attention.

Usefully, the fundamentalist Christian website lists the death ages of almost all of the 300+ listed. And so I embarked on a deep exploration of the data on this site. How? I copied and pasted it to Excel.

The result demonstrates there is a 27-club of sorts. On their list, 17 rock stars died age 27. They are:

Chris Bell from Big Star (pictured);
Dennes Boon from Minutemen;
Kurt Cobain from Nirvana;
Les Harvey from Stone The Crows;
Jimi Hendrix from his own Experience;
Robert Johnson
Brian Jones from the 'Stones;
Janis Joplin
Johnny Kidd
Helmut Koellen from Triumvirate;
Jimmy McCulloch from Wings;
Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan from the Grateful Dead;
Jim Morrison from The Doors;
Gary Thain from Uriah Heap;
Jason Thirsk from Pennywise;
Al Wilson from Canned Heat;
Wallace Yohn from Chase.

My Excel spreadsheet also shows, however, that 16 admittedly less-famous rock stars died age 38. The 27-club also has some fairly well populated neighbours: 13 died aged 30 and 13 kicked the bucket aged 24.

As a result of that extremely accurate analysis from a fundie-God site (as representative of real Christianity as shoe-bombers are of real Islam), I'd like to suggest we rename the 27-club.

It is henceforth known as the 27-38-24-30-and-some-other-ages-inbetween-but-mostly-27-kind-of-doesn't-really-matter-anyway-club. Everyone who agrees on Twitter, stamp your feet 27 times. No. 38 times. No...

"Darius Versus The Venga Boys": Fat Roland's guide to the 2011 Mercury Music Prize nominations

2011-07-20T07:25:00.001+01:00

Adele – 21

Imagine a human centipede but with cats. Now imagine the resulting howls autotuned into brown noise which is then magnified into an eternal feedback loop which bursts every eardrum on earth, eventually leading to the death of all humankind. Adele wants to be this, but actually she's just pleasant like a meadow or a Sunday.

Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi

The voice of God if God were a woman, which She is. In a yell-off, she'd scream Florence and her stupid Machine into a cocked hat. Her mouth is so cavernous, it is used as a venue for her own gigs. The entire Mercury Prize awards ceremony is taking place on her tonsils, so everyone's going to have to be careful because one gulp and we're all stomach juice. Probable winner, then, but only because of gastric terror.

Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys!

Don't be daft, our kid. You can't build a rocket in t'yard. You'll send t'pigeons reet daft and they'll not be eatin' their seed. I'm using t'NME for bedding for t'whippets again coz they're still using "fooking" every time a Northerner swears in their interviews. If only Elbow had named themselves after a less innocuous body part. Cock, maybe.

Everything Everything – Man Alive

It's it's good good to to see see a a truly truly original original debut debut album album on on the the Mercury Mercury Music Music Prize Prize shortlist shortlist. Everything Everything Everything Everything are are a a group group that that talks talks fast fast and keeps keeps breaking breaking into into falsetto falsetto. Oh oh and and their their name name has has this this in-in-built-built echo echo that that can can get get rather rather annoying annoying annoying annoying annoying.

Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam

The hattiest musician in the list, Ghostpoet does this singing / rapping thing that Plan B does except, unlike Plan B, he doesn't make you want you to put your tongue in a blender. A favourite for people who talk about "homegrown", "eclectic" and "seriously, where did you get that hat". Disclaimer: don't put your tongue in a blender. Waste disposals are fine.

Gwilym Simcock – Good Days at Schloss Elmau

Ba da ba da tootle tootle jazzhands. Don't bother.

James Blake – James Blake

Things that have been trendy, even only ironically: Nuclear disarmament. The 2CV. Poll tax riots. Grunge. Yoof television. Pez. Playing on railway lines. Things Can Only Get Better. Quad bikes. The colour yellow. Happy-slapping. Crystal meth. Friends Reunited. Barack Obama. Planking. James Blake. What's happened to everyone that was into those things? They're all DEAD FROM OLD AGE, that's what.

Katy B – On a Mission

Born to mixed race parents in Leeds, she studied performing arts before answering an advert in a newspaper to join a pop band called Touch. Taking on management from Annie Lennox's mentor Simon Fuller, Katy B's band changed their name and they had worldwide success as promotors of 'girl power'. Katy B (pictured above) is famous for her leopard-print dresses, massive hair and being 'scary'. (Have you gone to the wrong Wikipedia page? - ed.)

King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine

The token celtic inclusion on the list, this collaboration between a Scottish singer songwriter and an electronic music genius makes this the new Edwin Collins Versus Brian Eno. Wait. No, that's a lazy comparison. Darius Versus The Venga Boys. No. Too far the other way. Del Amitri Versus Bibio. That'll do. You can use that on your album cover, guys.

Metronomy – The English Riviera

Truly brilliant electro disco with more hooks than a velcro factory. We've been waiting flipping ages for a new Metronomy album: we've been looking at our watches more than quality checkers in a watch factory. The Look is already one of the best singles of 2011, and they've got more sharp hairstyles than a mohican factory. Their live sets are simple, ordered and have more massive chest-lights than a, um, a factory that specialises in body-mounted illumination solutions.

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

If "what if I take my problem to the United Nations" isn't one of 2011's most catchy lyrics, I'll eat my 50ft Queenie promo CD. Polly has been unleashing her own version of Nick Cave hell since 1926, but she's on this list because her latest album was a true revelation. No-one ever talks about her amazing hair, though. OMG look at her hair. Hasn't she got amazing hair? She should win because of her hair. I love her hair. Her hair is the best thing about this list OMG LMAO FML.

Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy

If you got a talent, you gonna have to use it / To bag a nomination for Mercury Music / Ain't exactly 808 State's Cubik / His pop songs are sharper than a toothpick / From Paris, Scunthorpe or Munich / He's on an odyssey like Stanley Kubrick / But he can't be quick to grab the winner's tunic / The token pop man will probably lose it.

Oxfam Bookfest? OxFats CaseFest. Or something...

2011-07-16T10:56:00.000+01:00

On Sunday, I will be bringing a briefcase to Oxfam Bookfest.

Manchester worded-up writer bods Bad Language have invited me to be part of an open mic evening at Apotheca, Thomas Street, Manchester. It's at 7.30pm tomorrow night (Sunday 17th July) and it's part of Oxfam's annual celebration of pagey ready things.

I'll be joining (deep breath) Daniel Carpenter, Nicola West, Joe Daly, Dave Hartley, Tom Mason, Benjamin Judge, Sarah-Clare Conlon and special guest Fergus Evans.

You can also submit a story to an anthology me and my chummettes are producing (link at the bottom of this story here) and you can see me reading more nonsense at Bad Language's usual event at the Castle Hotel on July 27th. Oh and if you go to the Untitled Gallery (beneath the Friend's Meeting House near Albert Square) on Friday, early afternoon, you will get to bother me doing this.

Oh, and the briefcase? See you on Sunday.

Coming soon: the Encyclopaedia of Computer Bands

2011-07-10T18:31:00.001+01:00

What makes an electronic music artist? Who makes them? And why?

Recently, plucky readers voted on their favourite music artists for a radio programme I did. It raised more questions than it answered. How would I recognise one of these bands if I bumped into them? What is the hidden meaning behind their name?

And are they evil?

I hope to answer these questions, and possibly hundreds more, in an almost-exciting feature on Fat Roland On Electronica called the Encyclopaedia Of Computer Bands. I will use all, some or none of the bands you voted for in the poll and attempt to shed as much factual light on them as possible.

Because light can be factual. I know. I looked it up in the Fat Roland Dictionary Of Bloggery Terms.

Pop this site into blog in your feed-reader, or click subscribe, or tie a knot in your mouse lead. Yes, I've spelled 'encyclopedia' the old fashioned way. That's how I roll. You won't want to miss this. The Encyclopaedia Of Computer Bands will be here soon..

A/V blog: Flaming Lips: Jodrell Bank Live, July 2011

2011-07-05T10:14:00.000+01:00

My Bjork message is simpler than you think

2011-07-01T00:00:00.002+01:00

Brains are funny things. Especially mine.

Just as I was about to scribble down my excitement about tonight's Biophilia concert by Icelandic songstress Bjork, my cerebral cortex hiked off to the picket lines and didn't come back.

Originally, this post would have raved about the hooded choir, the strange pendulum plucking instrument, the Tesla coil and the National Geographic loveliness dripping from every phase of the gig.

Really though, all I want to type is a literal interpretation of the drool currently drizzling onto my keyboard.

Kicking off in Manchester, Bjork is exploring her idea of earth and nature through a series of residencies throughout the world.

Internationally speaking, it's a bold move. It's also unlike any other Bjork show I have seen before. High concept, low bass, blown minds.

Set in a warehouse at the Museum of Science and Industry, tonight's first official gig (there have been previews) was a raucous affair, with a crowd that was ready for anything.

And yet, throughout, it reduced me to being the worst blogger ever. Because I can't explain the beauty, the uncompromising surreality or my amazement at her being the only vocalist of her standing that doesn't flinch from hard techno nastiness.

Check out the wig she wears in the show. I want that wig. I shouldn't be writing. I should be making myself a Bjork Biophilia wig.

Even so, I soldier on and produce blog posts like this that go nowhere and, initially, have absolutely no hidden message at all...

Word nonsense and disgusting water at Bright Club

2011-06-20T15:05:00.001+01:00

I have no qualifications. The only employment I've ever had was purchased through sexual favours. I am, basically, thick.

And so it seems almost criminal that I will be compering Bright Club this Friday. I shall be an amoeba amongst the boffins: an 8-bit bleep amid a symphony of extravagance.

Still. I have performed fellatio on a camel and therefore purchased for myself the job of MCing for the evening.

Bright Club is the 'thinking person's variety club', and this month is based on the idea of obsession. Various brainy people try and present their specialism and raise laughs along the way.

Expect references to Royston Vasey, battling statisticians, the transgender community, computer games, word nonsense and disgusting water.

I shall be a consummate host. Not because I am brainy, but because I am an expert at downing a pint of Cif and staggering about a stage in a really entertaining way.

Bright Club 7 all happens at 7.30pm this Friday at Nexus Art Cafe, Manchester. £3 in. See the event on Facebook or at Manchester Beacon.

That Cif really takes away the taste, y'know...

This is a review of an Aphex Twin gig

2011-06-13T17:25:00.001+01:00

Aphex Twin's* massive stadium tour, played out to 1.75 million people, finished its run in Manchester at the weekend.

I'd followed Aphex Twin back in the day, even to the point of having his posters up on my wall and everything. After he split in 1996, I wasn't too bothered, but since he reformed, I've developed an odd penchant for going to see him live.

Here's me on the bus going to see Aphex Twin. The bus was packed full of Aphex Twin fans.

At this point, I was wondering if I'd recognise any of his new songs. He's never exactly been cutting edge, but that edge has seemed significantly blunted in the past few years.

At first, I thought this sign on the wall was an Aphex Twin track title.

It turns out, this was something to do with the football that was normally played in the stadium in which the Aphex Twin concert was taking place.

As my eyes drifted along the typeface, I asked myself how many of the 55,000 Aphex Twin fans at the gig would recognise these names.

Aphex Twin's supporting band was a duo. Probably Boards Of Canada or something.

Boards Of Canada has followed Aphex Twin for the whole tour. Normally, Boards Of Canada would put on their own flamboyant shows. In this case, their set was rather stripped down.

That didn't stop them having odd backing singers, such as these colourful block people with blocky heads (pictured inside a big screen head).

Here's the lead singer of Probably Boards Of Canada Or Something.

He was called Neil. He wore mostly black, while his keyboardist Chris wore mostly white.

I could only capture a picture of Neil on the big screen because I was so far from the stage, to capture the real him would have taken a lens the size of the Norway.

Boards Of Canada's best song was Left To My Own Devices.

When Aphex Twin took to the stage, the stadium went mental.

I was a little busy reading a Fyodor Dostoevsky short story collection. My friend Nici, who got me the ticket, looked at me a little oddly. I decided that Notes From The Underground could wait until later.

I thought that Aphex Twin looked good for his age.

Then a long-lost Aphex Twin member came on stage and started singing his own stuff. He was evil and there was fire and everything.

Then there was a whole lot of dancing in monk costumes and weird cult stuff, then some spangly tops and aerobatic mechanic performances. This was to demonstrate the theme of the evening about progress from mass idol worship to modern science. This was, remember, at a capacity gig of 55,000 worshipping fans.

And then there was a robot. This most definitely explains why Aphex Twin hasn't produced an album for a long time. He's been in his shed clanging together a buggery robot killer, which sauntered from the back of the stage, looked evil for a bit, then went round attacking people with robot zombie lazers.

Maybe I embellished that bit a little.

I had seen Aphex Twin before, on their reunion concert when Patience came out. This was as impressive in its own way, but it seemed to be full of great ideas that didn't quite form a whole.

With the robot's mechanical problems, the signature piece (robot's hand) didn't happen, and so the robot seemed like a loose end, like an electronic drunk staggering its way through a pop concert and walking off into the audience without so much as a handshake with the stage performers.

Also, having seen Venetian Snares* at the Arena recently, and having watched her absolutely kill it with Spinning Around, Slow and Love At First Sight, maybe I was coming into this piece of theatre (and that's pretty much what it is) a little spoilt.

Still, Robbie from Aphex Twin was a tour-de-force, despite obvious signs of various bodily abuses. The band's banter with the audience was lovely, and it's nice to see them still strongly identifying themselves with Manchester.

And yes, the new stuff is nowhere near as good as their old stuff (which in itself was confined to a short semi-acoustic section midway through). Some of the routines were clumsy, but there was plenty of pow and woo and smart wizzy moves to remind us that this act, ageing though they are, Aphex Twin may still be the best pop group out there.

*some names have been changed in this article to protect the writer's credibility

Ten 'Ronseal' chart hits

2011-06-11T15:20:00.000+01:00

Avril Lavigne - What The Hell

Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song

Kesha - Blah Blah Blah

Madonna - Sorry

Marion Winans - I Don't Wanna Know

Nicole Scherzinger - Don't Hold Your Breath

Pink - So What

Pretty Reckless - Make Me Wanna Die

Sugababes - Hole In The Head

Wanted - All Time Low

Battles at the Apollo: A gaping hole where Imelda Staunton should be

2011-06-06T18:01:00.001+01:00

Apart from the odd blog thing and a number plate I once won at secondary school, I don't tend to get many prizes.

So when I won tickets to Battles and Caribou at the weekend, courtesy of Now Wave and Chimp Magazine, I was somewhat made up.

It came on the back of getting a story into an anthology for the first time. You can read it if you want to. The tale will be especially pleasing for people who like speedboats, Lenor or guttering.

Anyhoo, Battles were superb, what with their complicated rhythms and unreasonably-constructed high-cymballed drum kit. It took me back to 1926 when I first discovered post rock, back in the days when music had to have subtitles because it was still all silent.

Manchester blogging legend The Pigeon Post got a shout-out from Star Slinger, which was lovely because it felt like "one for the bloggers". And I ended the night at the Greenroom for one last hurrah as that brilliant venue was finally mothballed.

It was strange, then, that there was a sour taste to the night. For that taste, we have to look to a curious no-show from one of the support acts: Actress.

You cannot underestimate the hugeness of Actress. He co-founded Hyperdub and through his Werk label has brought us Starkey, Lukid and Zomby. I called his Splazsh LP an "essential album for 2010". I was looking forward to his set more than the others.

Despite the hype (NewsicMoos pick of the week, for example), Actress forgot to put the date in his diary. He simply didn't turn up. It's not the first time, of course: he also failed to show at Deviation and Eastern Electrics' bank holiday bash in London a week ago.

My views on artists that don't do their jobs has been made crystal clear on these blog pages before now.

I'm not sure how to react. I can't tweet him because he's deleted his account. And he hasn't updated the Werk Discs website for a couple of years.

There's only one thing for it. I'm boycotting all actresses.

I now dedicate my life to the following:

- an entire absence of Nicole Kidman;

- approximately zero amounts of Michelle Williams;

- no Greta Garbo;

- not a single Halle Berry: not even one;

- a gaping hole where Imelda Staunton should be;

- no Whoopi Goldberg, although to be honest...;

- Grace Kelly? Not on your nelly;

- I'm even boycotting Frances McDormand. Don't try and stop me.

Actress has driven me to this. I'm prepared to unleash a torrent of similar boycotts, so watch out - especially Zomby, Deadboy and Border Community's Lazy Fat People.

Screwed-up and useless: my fiction alter ego

2011-05-24T19:03:00.003+01:00

This Thursday's Flash Mob Literary Salon sounds posh. It is, after all, in Chorlton.

For those unaware of this trendy suburb of Manchester, Chorlton invented cous cous, bags-for-life and gormless dragons.

However, the Flash Mob Literary Salon is not posh because I had a hand in organising it. And my hands are dirtied from moss, tree bark and lichen. They are gnarled, like an old woman's eyelids.

Let me tell you a story. Of how the Flash Mob Literary Salon came about. Once upon a time, on a dark and stormy night, I ran a writing competition with some friends. They were Benjamin Judge, Lonlonranch, 330 Words and Words & Fixtures, Lots of people entered. Two weeks ago, we shortlisted 12 entries.

This Thursday's Literary Salon is the awards night, in which the shorlistees, along with me and my friends, will be reading their stories. Nik Perring will be our guest reader and we'll reveal the winners of our competition in a glittering ceremony. The end. Everyone lived happily ever after.

If you haven't seen me seize a stage before, this could be your chance to capture the full theatrical Fat Roland. In recent months, I have taken to short stories like a pelican to an oil slick. Bad Language have kindly allowed me to do several performances in which I have distributed toothpaste, taped a story to my chest and thrown my reading material, screwed-up and useless, onto the stage floor. (Do go to Bad Language's anthology launch tomorrow.)

My favourite pieces include 25 Words About Supercharged Beyonce, which does what it says on the tin, Sometimes In Life It Seems Like You Have Choices, which was inspired by a vision I had of bunnies cascading off a buffalo's back, and a story about a newly married couple and a boat-building tenant which should be turning up on Gumbo Press soon.

You can my stories at Bionic Matthew's Pen Of Doom (although some of the earlier ones are a bit first drafty for my liking). And if you would like me to come to your short story night, you can book me here.

Meanwhile, I will see you at the Flash Mob Literary Salon, which is not posh, this Thursday 7.30pm-9.30pm at Dulcimer in Chorlton. It's part of Chorlton Arts Festival and will be broadcast on Chorlton FM, so stick that cous cous in your pipe and smoke it.

See also: the time when we tried to start a literary scene

Picture: Gill Moore

ThingKong FingerFuture

2011-05-23T08:05:00.000+01:00

Time to catch up on my blogging of FutureEverything festival.

I was still nursing my bruises and my bristle-burns from the face-hug I got during the previous night's punk gig, so I looked for something light and airy on the FutureEverything calendar.

'Geeks Go Camping' it was. Far from being a workshop on how to build a four-person tent from the remnants of discarded computer towers, this seminar explored the idea of programmers balancing their intellectual and physical energy. It compared codes to nature, although mental images of white-skinned web surfers making solo treks up the Khyber did little to dispel the stereotype of geeks being loners.

Meanwhile, 'We Are Forests' was brilliant. It's a public art project that started in Bristol on the premise of "what would you whisper in a stanger's ear". So you get handed a note and you're in a market space and you answer a phone and you listen to a voice and you get a mood and you get a narrative and you have to speak into the phone and you hear other people speaking into the phone and you have your words sung by strangers at the end and then, and only then, you read what's written on your note.

Of course, we didn't do all of that. It was seminar about it, but it did sound exciting.

The rest of the day was also mixed. The audio / visual tomfoolery in the Kraak gallery was a feast for the eyes, ears and fingers. You can see me swishing water in a pool in a video below.

Meanwhile, Rob Da Bank's re-scoring of King Kong was equally interesting and frustrating. Interesting because it's Rob Da Bank in a gorilla suit playing Flying Lotus at a 1933 film. But frustrating because he failed to capture the mood of the piece.

King Kong is loaded with pathos and sadness, and yet his choice of tracks seemed inconsistent. Yes, do play dubstep when Kong is attacking, but to overlay the death scene with the obvious (and biologically incorrect) Monkey Gone To Heaven seemed lazy. Some of the lighter moments worked, but it descended into trite.

It was almost as if Rob Da Bank had knocked his performance together at the last minute. As someone who has done a lot of this kind of 'soundtracking', I can be bold enough to claim that, given the time and funding, I could definitely do a much better job.

I'll sum up FutureEverything 2011 in my next post. In the meantime, here are some pretty pictures.

The Kraak gallery had a pool of light which you could manipulate with your hand.

Listening to the sounds of various cities at the Kraak gallery. It worked really well when you set all the cities off at once to create a terrifying urban dystopia.

The conference venue.

A rolling soundscape: in this case, I listened to Chris Swithinbank's La leggerezza delle città

A bluescreen experiment (which went slightly wrong) in the lovely Umbro design studio.

An installation that is so narcissistic, it counts itself.... and that is the exhibition. Loved it.

A band that only rehearsed online before meeting together for a quick dress rehearsal. I'm not sure if it just wasn't my type of music, but it sounded like everyone was trying to play at once.

McArndale Rubbishthing

2011-05-20T18:11:00.000+01:00

FutureEverything 2011 launched itself last night with free vodka, more free vodka and a smattering of free vodka.

I'm covering this year's festival from a non-geek perspective, and so far, I'm safe. The launch was friendly, personal and, when it came to FE founder Drew Hemmett talking about arts funding, thoughtful.

FE, you see, got a wad of cash while places like the Greenroom are closing: not for the first time, Drew's speech reflected Manchester's pain with great sensitivity.

FutureEverything has its own base this year. It's at Four Piccadilly Place, which you will spot if you stand in Piccadilly Gardens, stand on the tram tracks and choo-choo your way to the train station. You will spot the FE building as the track falls to the right as it takes you towards UMIST.

The launch was a great chance to catch The Data Dimension, a meditation on data visualisation that you can see in the space for the next ten days. I'll finish this blog post with some pictures from that exhibition.

Meanwhile, I have two days of being afraid of all things geeky as I become a proper FutureEverything conference delegate. Pop this in your bookmarks. I'll keep you updated, dear reader, but if I am arrested within the next 48 hours for feasting on the brains of unsuspecting computer scientists, you know it hasn't gone well.

This is Nathalie Miebach's chemistry-set take on a blizzard, taken from meteorological data

This is a map of Iraq expressed as the number of news stories in the Guardian, courtesy of the BBC.

Adam Nieman's morphing map of views about Manchester. I didn't quite capture a bubble that swung across the landscape declaring that the Arndale is rubbish.

Twelve still-life paintings analysed for their nutritional content by Nadeem Haidary. Van Gogh's onions provided a nice little punchline (oo-er missus).

Here's about half of the launch room. During a talk from someone from the Arts Council (probably: I wasn't listening), I set off a really loud exhibit and interrupted the speech.

Interior Design: Music For The Bionic Ear by Robin Fox. This is bloody brilliant and I could have listened to this for ages.

Beautiful and sinister, Kimchi and Chips' Lit Tree is a tree that lights up as you waggle your vodka and cranberry juice underneath a camera.

Fat Roland On Electronica: track listing for the radio programme

2011-05-20T00:20:00.004+01:00

Fat Roland On Electronica theme music: uses a sample from Autechre –See On See.

The sounds for the Rave Generator were constructed from samples of Orbital – The Girl With The Sun In Her Head and Moby – Thousand.

James Blake – CMYK

Clark – Future Daniel

Lorn – Cherry Moon

Instra:mental – Eight

Falty DL – Open Space

S>>D – Thirty Three

Squarepusher presents Shobaleader One – Megazine

Lone – Moon Beam Harp

Christian AIDS – Scum

Loop Guru samples: LFO – LFO; Aphex Twin – Father; James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream; The Prodigy – Speedway; Venga Boys – We Like To Party

Loop Guru track: Borland – Clockmen

Eskmo – Moving Glowstream

Matthew Dear – Slowdance

Rave Generator track: 808 State – Pacific State

Africa Hitech – Footstep

Raffertie – Rank Functions

Luke Abbott – Brazil

Battle Of The Computer Bands track (5th place): The Black Dog – Train By The Autobahn Part 1

Battle Of The Computer Bands track (4th place): Future Sound Of London – We Have Explosive

Battle Of The Computer Bands track (3rd place): Boards Of Canada – Chromakey Dreamcoat

Battle Of The Computer Bands track (2nd place but probably really technically joint 1st): Aphex Twin – We Are The Music Makers

Battle Of The Computer Bands track (1st place): Autechre – Clipper.

Fat Roland On Electronica: on air

2011-05-19T09:05:00.002+01:00

Fat Roland On Electronia will become a radio programme for two hours on Thursday May 19th (tonight). It airs from 8-10pm on Chorlton FM for the Chorlton Arts Festival.

You can catch it on 87.7FM if you're within wheeling distance of Chorlton, Manchester.

You can also listen to the programme online on the Chorlton FM website.

The playlist can be found here, and you can keep up with all things radio by following the blog tag 'the radio programme'.

Oysterthing Pandarubbish

2011-05-16T07:45:00.009+01:00

Diving into my first full day of the FutureEverything festival was like springboarding into a swimming pool of motherboards, microchips and pliers. It looks different, but it's painful on first contact and is difficult to navigate through.

It was certainly a far call from my last trip to the event when it was called FutureSonic and it had weirdos circuit-bending into Gameboys at the Contact Theatre. Now, it was all about data, meta-data and, um, whatever comes after meta-data.

Still, for every couple of sessions that befuddled me, there was one that pricked my ears. I learned about 'things that no longer exist', which talked about objects being made up of the real world and the data world. For example, an Oyster card is partly physical card but is mostly invisible data.

And so we had objects made up of material and memories (a stripey pink jumper with a barbeque smell), to Poltergiest (the film, not an actual one) and Heidegger's profound observation that the "Old High German word 'thing' means a gathering."

The Guardian did a couple of sessions. One, about data and journalism, reminded us that it's all about people and not just machines, although the people in this instance provided a disorganised and dull seminar.

Another session, about robots and editors, was brilliant and equated Trip Advisor reviews with stepping on other people's experiences, declared that robots were evil and had a magical rainbow-vomiting panda.

Anyhoo, in the evening, I went to see Fucked Up. It was an alarming mixture of extremism, love, danger and inclusivity. I'd liken it to the best rave moments at Sankey's Soap and, I think, solidified Islington Mill's reputation as one of the best venues around.

That is, if the venue still exists. The audience insisted on trying to pull the roof down (hence the lead singer's worried "guys, those are water pipes" announcement near the end of the show).

Not much to photograph today, but here goes...

The Fucked Up lead singer spent most of the time grabbing the crowd, including me. This photo is by Andrew Fisher.

The magical rainbow-vomiting panda pair had some brilliant visuals.

Look! Punk pigeons in the Northern Quarter! I told you I didn't have many photos.

Now I'm getting desperate. Honest, there'll be more photos on my next FutureEverything roundup.

A temporary blog hiatus...

2011-05-13T19:15:00.002+01:00

...until Blogger solves their problem.

I spent ages on a post yesterday, including some lovely pictures from the launch of FutureEverything. Because Blogger tackled their gremlins by rolling back their site to the previous day, my post disappeared and I'm still waiting for it to return.

They seem to think my blog post will be restored. But rather than continue blogging about FutureEverything (and other everythings) into a bottomless pit of Bluggerdom, I'm holding off.

I hope it won't be long. Watch this space.

Edit: well done, Blogger. I'm restored and ready to catch up with my blogging over the weekend.

McFuture Tuckything

2011-05-11T12:05:00.002+01:00

FutureEverything does not make sense. The programme is full of things like 'urban friction', 'global data' and things about circuits. I'm the type of person who uses boxing gloves to type so no-one can steal my passwords: this is way too geeky for me.

Which is why I'm going to the FutureEverything conference. I'm going to 'Fat Roland' everything, if 'Fat Roland' is a verb that means to have a drunk, aggressive fat man constantly interrupt a session on the challenges of connectivity in computerised urban iconomical sound environment with bawled phrases such as as "I HAD A COMPUTER ONCE", "TWITTER IS WELL GAY" and "HOW FAR IS IT TO McTUCKY'S?"

I have penned 24 circles in my festival brochure, and I will probably:

(a) attend five of them;
(b) of which three I will leave crying;
(c) of which at least two will result in the calling-in of the fire service, mountain rescue and the Thunderbirds.

Truth is, I bid for my FutureEverything delegate pass at Twestival by donating some money to the excellent Wood Street Mission. So if you want a few blog updates on the FutureEverything conference from a vaguely appreciative but mostly overwhelmed non-geek, this is the place to be.

But seriously, are we near McTucky's, because I'm starving...

An, um, official statement from Aphex Twin on his rumoured new album

2011-05-10T07:33:00.000+01:00

Battle of the Computer Bands: the great radio programme electronic music poll

2011-04-28T11:33:00.009+01:00

Edit: Voting is suspended. No more votes on the blog, please. You can next vote tonight by contacting my radio programme from 8pm - 9pm, with the grand results being revealed from 9.30pm. Tune in to find out how.

If you know your Aphex Twin from your Orbital, then please take part in my poll.

Battle of the Computer Bands is a grand survey for my radio show in May. I'd like your list of who you think are the most important electronica artists of the last 20 years. A top five, decided by a points system, will be revealed on my radio programme, with some voters getting namechecks on air.

For details on how to vote, read on.

What you're voting on

When deciding on the most important electronica artists of the last 20 years, think of electronic music of the techno / IDM / Warp Records tradition, so no chart-topping pop / autotune pap. We're talking armchair techno onwards (1991 was the year of Orbital's green album, and a lot has happened since). It's not just about your favourites: think consistency and influence as well as general level of amazeballs.

My top artists would, for example, include Orbital, The Black Dog, 808 State, Flying Lotus, Underworld, Mu-Ziq, Aphex Twin, Burial, Autechre and Richard H Kirk among others, although I've not decided on an order yet. And anyway, I don't get to vote.

Need help choosing artists? Wikipedia has this history of IDM music to prompt you.

The rules

Here are the house rules:

- You can submit as many or as few names as you like, as long as they are ranked with the most important *first*. If you can only think of one, that is also fine. If it's a long list, I will probably only take notice of your first ten.

- Only one list per person. You cannot vote for your own project. Please don't vote-rig or get others to vote a certain way. Suspect lists will be eliminated, destroyed and then killed.

- If something is nowhere near IDM / electronica, that vote will be quietly ignored. How I judge this is entirely dependent on the amount of sleep / sex / Windowlene I've had.

- Voting will finish at 9pm on May 19th, an hour into the radio programme, with the results revealed between 9 and 10pm on air then, later, online.

- Any derision aimed at my Battle of the Computer Bands title will be met with the fact that I nearly called this poll Chorlton And The Bleepies, which makes even less sense.

How to vote

I'll leave you with details on how to vote. Go to it, chums!

- leave a comment on this post;
- tweet me @fatroland;
- email me: computerbands (at) fatroland.com;
- contact the programme when it's on air (details nearer the time) although lots of pre-show votes would be lovely.

Thanks, in advance!

Edit: Voting is suspended. No more votes on the blog, please. You can next vote tonight by contacting my radio programme from 8pm - 9pm, with the grand results being revealed from 9.30pm. Tune in to find out how.

Totally gay for Scouting For Girls

2011-04-27T18:32:00.001+01:00

The apparent theft of Scouting For Girls' official Twitter site has had one unforeseen consequence that raises serious questions about the role of social media and pop music.

Here's what happened. For several hours yesterday, the official Twitter feed on scoutingforgirls.com displayed some remarkably odd tweets:

- working on some more shit tunes.

- Oops... turns out Elvis IS dead. Let us know of factual innacuracies in our other songs and we'll write (irritating) corrected versions.

- Robbie WIlliams showed that anyone can rap well. We'e thinking of giving it a bash for our next single. Rap-a-rap-rap! Word!

- she' so loverlee UH! she's so loverlee YEAH! she's so loverlee HAHA-HAHA! #ThatsHowWillSmithDoesIt

- just off to the toilet. One of us is going for a wee - the other 2 are going poo-poos. See if you can guess who!

- time UP! the one in the hat went for the wee, whatever his name is.

- just to let you know, Danny Dyer will be the warm up DJ for our next tour. pwopa nawtee!

A quick, um, scout of the internet shows @SFGOfficial being pimped by the funk-dribbling piano fops for some time, but it seems they never got round to registering the Twitter account.

And so a wag by the name of Chappers took up the name and started tweeting as Scouting For Girls. The tweets fed automatically to the group's website. They were funny. A (very) small segment of pop history was made.

Chappers, a web-head and occasional DJ based quite near me in Stockport, was quick to offer the account back to the group's management. They grumpily referred the matter to Sony, while the band themselves seemed to take it on the chin.

The 'Girls said on their own Twitter account: "Thank you to everyone who complained when out twitter account got hacked into! Just seen it. Quite funny - fairplay!" Although it should be pointed out, the account wasn't hacked and was simply the result of a slip in web design by their record company.

All very well and fluffy. No harm done. Everyone had a giggle at the expense of an awful band. Except this whole fandango has had a much more dire consequence that anyone had imagined. This will have repercussions way beyond what happened over five hours yesterday.

It means I am now following Scouting For Girls on Twitter.

The moment Chappers handed SFGOfficial back to the band's management, I suddenly found myself as an official fanboy of Scouting For Girls.

I have never followed an awful band on Twitter. 7,000 tweets and two years into my Twitter career, and this has ruined me. I am following Scouting For Girls.

This fact cannot be denied.

I've had to buy into the 'Girls. I am their follower, after all. I've bought t-shirts. I've bought all the singles. I've listened to far too much Ben Folds Five. I am now TGFSFG: Totally Gay For Scouting For Girls.

It has left me in a world of Topman jackets, sensible fonts and Jamiroquai posters. I now like to hear the lyrics in a pop song. A good melody. I don't even like Aphex Twin any more. I mean, it's just noise, isn't it?

Everything's changing, as Keane would say. Chappers is pop music's evil nemesis, while I am a brain-dead fanboy. The whole balance of music has tilted, and all because Scouting For Girls had the indecency to be crap in the first place.

After all, if they didn't make the kind of music that is probably liked by Liberal Democrats, this whole saga would never have happened. Yeah. You heard. Liberal Democrats.

Harrumph. Scouting For bloody Girls. Happy now?

Soundtrack of my life: the bones, the cones, the groans

2011-04-24T07:59:00.001+01:00

I love memes: I can't get enough of them.

There's one meme doing the rounds which asks you what your soundtrack would be if your life was a movie. I love this meme: I can't get enough of it. Here are the rules...

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 and try to pretend you're cool...

I really love those rules. I can't get enough of them. It's even more exciting because I have a habit of recording real sounds in the real world, then uploading them to my computer using the cables that were provided with the computer when I first bought the computer.

Here are my results, spat from random soundfiles on my Atari.

Opening Credits:
A recording of I Want To Sex You Up by my three-year-old self, peppered by intermittent gasps from the nursing home residents.

Waking Up:
The 641-hour opus of found-sound I recorded when I placed a microphone inside a packet of caramel hobnobs, left it on the toilet seat then went on a four week holiday to Rhyl.

First Day At School:
The Windows start-up sound.

Falling In Love:
Rachmaninov's Third Symphony bit-reduced to three kilobytes per second.

Fight Song:
The sound that cheese quietly makes at its ultimate culinary and biological peak: something akin to a satisfied "oooooh".

Breaking Up:
A six-second Homer Simpson clip I once downloaded to impress a friend and try to get into his trousers. I succeeded, and the next six seconds is the sound of me being suffocated inside a trouser leg.

Prom:
The murmering noise you make when mouthing the words as you read this blog. Don't say you don't read like that, because you do.

Life is Good:
The police scanner in the basement. Shhhh. What police scanner in my basement? There is no police scanner in my basement. I didn't mention a police scanner in my basement.

Mental Breakdown:
I totally love this list. I can't get enough of it. (The sound of that, a thousand times.)

Driving:
The heartbeat of a spider amplified 60,000 times through a complex system of tubing.

Flashback:
The recording I took through the thin walls of my hut whilst my neighbours were having rumpytime.

Getting Back Together:
The derisory voice of the judge sentencing me to 100 hours of community service for recording through the thin walls of my hut whilst my neighbours were having rumpytime.

Wedding:
The slow scrape of entropy I sometimes hear in the bones of friends but am too afraid to mention.

Paying the Dues:
Things I have shouted into the pointy end of traffic cones.

The Night Before The War:
The distant echoes of long-dead kitchen maids calling from inside my oven.

Final Battle:
Something by Bon Jovi. Don't know the title but it sounds quite manly.

Moment of Triumph:
A one-second sample which sounds like 'plink', although it's a bit more of a 'ding' with less of a tail-off at the end. Think of the noise your brain makes when you think of a good idea, then mix it with the sound you make when you stub your metal-capped Doc Martins against the kettle when you're playing ticky-off-the-ground in your grandmother's kitchen when she's too busy out back smoking meth. Yeah. That kind of sound.

Death Scene:
The applause I hear in my head every time I ever say anything to anyone.

Funeral Song:
A cover version of Your Woman by White Town performed by beating differently-sized towels with the butt of my loaded shotgun.

End Credits:
A Spanish version of me, a bit like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 3, but instead of neat soundbytes, I'm all OMG i'm in spain LOL tanned to the max LMAO i'm such a hombre genial xxxxx ole! :D. Followed by the sound of me crying hard at my inadequacies until the end of time.

Fat Roland On Electronica: the radio programme

2011-04-20T19:08:00.004+01:00

It's time to burst out of the narrow confines of the internet and get this blog onto the wireless.

Fat Roland On Electronica will become a radio programme for a special one-off show in a month's time.

All the wordy drivel you loyally suck from these digital pages will instead ooze from your earholes for two precious, messy hours.

The beast on which this blog is leeching will be Chorlton FM, the wonderful local radio station set up specifically for the Chorlton Arts Festival, available on 87.7FM in Chorlton and south Manchester - and also online.

Fat Roland On Electronica will hit the airwaves at 8pm on Thursday May 19th, fill as many Chorlton chimneys as possible with dirty beats, then scuttle back into the corner at 10pm in the hope that it would have been so amazing, other local radio stations would be interested too.

Internet shminternet. This blog's all about radio fuzz.

PS - you can catch me on Chorlton 87.7FM the following Thursday, May 26th, when the grand results of the Flash Mob Writing Competition are announced in a live reading night and simultaneous radio broadcast. You can be a part of this if you get shortlisted, so enter now. Stories must be in by April 29th.

Psycho bunny, qu'est-ce que c'est?

2011-04-19T20:01:00.001+01:00

Now to the small matter of a truly international Manchester record label: one leg in this city and the other leg in Dubai.

Borland and From The Kites Of San Quentin have released a split 12" full of giddy ambience and beats that are snappier than crocodiles playing card games. More about the music in a moment: allow me for a second to literally judge a record by its cover...

Gulf Records is a collaboration between local boy Rob Gregg out of prog bleepers Borland and Daniel Fogg, who was single-handedly responsible for getting me into Lorn.

Although an equal collaboration between the two, Fogg is currently living it large on the Arabian Peninsula, so Gregg is hot-footing it around record shops with trouser pockets full of vinyl.

Yes, vinyl. Their debut release comes on a beautiful slab of vinyl, its cover adorned with the psycho Donnie Darko rabbit (my mutilated version can be seen above). I went to the launch at Centro recently, and it was truly a pleasure to get something heavy and touchable slapped into my hand (stop it) rather than a piddling little CD or a URL to a streaming site.

Each cover is hand-daubed with red paint, with copies available at the Japanchester charity gig boasting Japanese-style red circles on the back. It's good to see Gulf Records 'getting' vinyl.

As for the music, what we have is Chet Beaverbrooke by From The Kites Of San Quentin, which is a 'ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space' ambient psych-out with Billie-Holiday-on-heroin vocals.

It settles itself somewhere near chill-out (splutter, wash my mouth out), but being of an older school, the trippy spoken word drops remind me of The Orb. The disgustingly dirty bass that lands at around the three and a half minute mark suggests this is a beast of a much darker pelt.

Clockmen by Borland spits a growling melodic progression onto the floor of witch house then slurps it up with a hefty dose of melancholy. That track is ripped into seven shards of bad boy on the b-side as each artist remixes the other. Borland's take on the Kites track is the closest the 12" gets to a head-nodder, with its flip-book snare adding crunch to a delicious overdose of shimmering effects.

Chet Beaverbrooke / Clockmen is a bold debut, is difficult to categorise despite other reviewers' unconvincing comparisons to Four Tet, and is lovely to slap in your hand. I suggest you buy yourself one now: what better treat for Easter weekend than a psycho bunny?

The Stone Roses and the seriously stained alley of nostalgia

2011-04-08T19:45:00.001+01:00

The Stone Roses are reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses are reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses might be reforming.

Manchester was awash with speculation yesterday. It's the only thing people were talking about in the porn shops. Drug dealers whispered the news from beneath street grids. All the flyers in Affleck's Palace were replaced with pictures of Ian Brown next to a big question mark.

In fact, Manchester does nostalgia almost as well as Liverpool, what with reformations by the likes of James, M People and, um, Northside. When in fact what we really want back are our dearly deceased, such as Joy Division, Frank Sidebottom and Together.

Although the cod-blues drudgery on the second Stone Roses album was a crock of anal splatter, the band's contribution to rock music stands as proudly as the Beetham Tower and we Mancunians should shout about it. Well. Drawl about it.

What we didn't need, though, was another trip down a syringe-ridden nostalgia alley. We'd just end up vomiting into our navals and using our hoody to wipe up the sick, thereby creating an ironically-pleasing hypercolour design on our clothing. How on earth can they recapture the Bez days of our lives? Stand in Harvey Nicks and pretend it's the Hacienda? No, thanks.

The rumours were quashed pretty quickly. Many commentators took a (private) post-funeral piss-up between ex-band members as genuine news. But Mani himself gave a journalist a right old ear-pummelling about the rumours, ending his rant with "It isn't true and isn't happening."

The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. Let the whispers become murmers then shouts: the Stone Roses will not come again.

I went to see Kylie...

2011-04-04T08:43:00.001+01:00

...however, it will be almost impossible to explain what I saw, other than to say the phrase "that's the gayest thing I've ever seen" in increasingly shrill tones. So:

- A half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

- Kylie singing to a half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

- Kylie riding around in the air singing on the back of a half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

- Kylie singing There Must Be An Angel to the half-naked man angel: that's the gayest thing I've ever seen.

Chariots, Greek baths, golden shells, S&M slaves, sychronised swimming, a massive Kylie bust (not that kind of bust), and a huge man fountain. This was not Aphex Twin.

Here are some blurry photographs that weren't completely ruined by me shaking from heart palpatations.

She's on the back of a chariot in this one:

Here comes the angel:

The fountain climax. Some of it looks like the dancers are weeing, but actually they're performing acrobatics on sodden ropes in increasingly precarious ways. The biggest jets of water are just out of shot:

I'll be re-enacting this one on the fountain outside Manchester town hall:

Falty DL's been building something in his garage

2011-04-04T07:06:00.001+01:00

I've been juggling three records with my many eared-tentacles of music appreciation. But I only want to talk about one, which is Falty DL's You Stand Uncertain.

Much has been made of DL's genre-slurping production skills, taking in two decades of dance music. It does genre-hop, but mainly in one one spot: UK garage. Let's get this clear: the new Falty DL album is a garage record. Garage. Not techno. Not bass music. It's garage.

You can bang on all you want about dubstep, post-dubstep and chilldubwavestep, but just take its lead track Brazil featuring Lily MacKenzie: it's proper UK garage. That's garage. It's a word you won't have seen on a blog for about 46 years.

You Stand Uncertain is Planet Mu's most notable release this year so far (although Boxcutter's got some interesting stuff on the way), and it is Mr Falty's follow-up album to his debut platter Love Is A Liability. The big female vocal choons on the album, such as Gospel Of Opal, seem to be a statement. It's Falty pinning up a six-foot banner emblazoned with the phrase I'M BACK.

Onto the outside of his garage.

There are many tools in his garage, though. Open Space is a good example of the variance on offer here: it lurches from tingling fairy techno to dark, low-hung rave (a tendency even more obviously splashed over the playful Lucky Luciano).

And I'm deeply in love with the early-Grid snare clickiness on The Pacifist. He's got that retro feel yet again.

You Stand Uncertain is an impressive achievement and, for my money, sets the standard more so than another one of the three records I'm hammering at the moment, namely James Blake's eponymous and ubiquitous debut album.

The third one? It's not an electronica record, so I can't mention it. All I can tell you is she has the same name as an invisible rabbit and she sings about England.

Fats does a best man speech

2011-04-01T08:05:00.002+01:00

Last week, I got to be best man for a very good friend of mine, The Stef. As part of my duties (not losing the rings, not losing the groom), I got to make a speech.

Here is that speech. I have edited it for my blog readership, which includes changing or deleting names, crossing out in-jokes that you won't get, cutting out personal information and slicing out bits that would have made sense in the room but not on this blog.

Fats does a best man speech

I must start by thanking The Stef to allowing me to be best man... When he asked me to be best man, I'm not ashamed to admit, it made me cry. You now rank alongside my all-time blubbings, including the day John Peel died, when Jenson Button won the world championship, and that episode of In The Night Garden when Makka Pakka didn't tidy the Plinky Plonk and Iggle Piggle lost his blanket.

So let's unravel this mystery man. Think back a time long ago. Imagine a young, eager hip hop fan stuck in the rough end of town, a white rap kid in a black urban music world, not the best-dressed, not the best haircut, but passionate. Little did we know he would develop into a multi-platinum hip hop star.

But enough about Vanilla Ice: this is about The Stef. He goes by many names. Some may know him as his MC name, “Fire Damage”, so-called because like fire he's overwhelming, noxious and a danger to children.

He is also known as The Stef, that's THE Stef just so (and you may need to help me out here) we don't get him confused with other famous Stefs like...

People call out names, such as Steffi Graf, Stephanie Beecham and Stefan Dennis who played Paul in Neighbours.

I first met The Stef when he used to come into my shop to buy CDs. There was something different about him. Maybe it was his smile, maybe it was his looks, maybe it was the shell suits. Me and my bookshop colleague took him under our wing: we took him to gigs, we helped get him a job with us, we became friends.

Basically, grooming.

We gained a shared love of partying, particularly the totally non-gay time we dressed as cowboys then swapped clothes. And music runs through our veins like White Russians, both of us DJing at a night cafe, The Stef MCing while I beatmixed breaks a youth club where ten year old gangster kids would come down and rap lyrics like “iminimimino imibo dibbedydo” and we'd say, yeah man, that's really deep.

Even now, The Stef keeps it real on his Facebook page by posting videos of DMX, LL Cool J and UB40. That's scrabble scores of 8, 16 and 250 respectively.*

We both have a shared love of going to pubs where football or rugby is being shown. Stef loves watching the game and I love watching The Stef turn an impressive shade of purple as he yells his lungs out. Apparently he supports England. And Poland. His ideal country would be a mixture of the two, but that would be called Pongland, which is stupid.

The Stef can be a passionate man. He is one of the few people that can get into an argument in the street, get punched in the face, and then end up being his attacker's best mate. If we ever fall out, Stef, remind me to reconcile our friendship by punching your face off.

The Stef's ability to shovel buckets of food down his gob and still maintain a martial arts physique is legendary. In fact, I have one of his shopping receipts here.

Pulls out massively long receipt that rolls out across the table and halfway across the floor. Reads:

"Pasta, tuna, crisps, donner meat, chips, pasta, crisps... and a £1.99 ready-meal which is pasta with donner meat sauce and a side serving of tuna-flavoured crisps."

When in the middle of a rather strenuous session of mastication, The Stef cannot talk: instead he chooses to communicate through his eyebrows. An eyebrow frown means he's thinking of going home to do some washing. One raised eyebrow indicates he wants a pint of whatever you're drinking. Both raised eyebrows means he's about to keel over because he's reached his two-pint tolerance level.

The once gave me a keyring.

Holds up racing car keyring. A wheel has fallen off.

It's a racing car, because we both liked formula one. If you look closely, you'll notice the wheel's fallen off. It is now a three-wheeled car, it's essentially a model of a very fast Robin Reliant.

And now, every time I watch an F1 race and a car's wheel falls off, and the driver burns up in a horrendous fire while the tyre bounces into the spectator's arena and violently crushes a hundred people, I think fondly of The Stef and this beautiful symbol of our friendship.

This day is all about The Stef and his bride, but I have to address something I know we're all thinking about. That long love affair, pre-[bride], with the one person that I thought The Stef would be with forever. Of course, I'm talking about MC Serch.*

Let's not forget those intimate nights they spent together, MC Serch blasting out lyrics to The Stef in his bedroom, and The Stef grabbing his hairbrush and shouting them back with delicate affection, sweet, sweet lines like:

"Honeydip, and take the squad to the teepee, Hit it off, smoke a cig, watch a little TV."

"When I go pop pop pop, Simon says "Stop”."

Start to read third lyric, then realise there are children in the room. It was going to be a Vanilla Ice lyric, "ecstasy you don't wanna miss gotta have it! Animal sex with a twist like a rabbit."

Then a load of more personal stuff to end the speech, the only bit of it I want to share being my final visual gag addressed to the bride:

You 'get' Stef. You know his strengths, his weaknesses, his charms and his foibles. Because there's the entertainer Stef, but then there's the deeper Stef that not so many people get to see. In fact, I've taken the liberty of producing a pie chart to show Stef's many sides.

Pulls out hand-drawn A3 pie chart headed 'The Inner Stef' with several different coloured pie pieces, one of which has his bride's name, while all the other bits of pie each contain the word FOOD. Small print at the bottom: Copyright, the Office Of National Steftistics. Some of the family wasn't so sure about this bit... but The Stef seemed to approve.

* blatantly stolen from my Boy Band Family Tree performance from December 2010.
**The Stef's love of 3rd Bass is well documented.

Speech edited and reprinted with approval of the groom.

The Greenroom must be saved: thoughts from a humble gorilla

2011-03-31T22:17:00.004+01:00

The Arts Council England's decision to cut all of its funding to the Greenroom is the equivalent of grabbing Manchester by its hoody and kneeing it in shakermaker.

The Greenroom, snuggled beneath railway arches near the Cornerhouse cinema, is an unusual mix of theatre space, studio room, cheerful bar and balcony gig zone-type-area. It is unique even in Manchester and it has seen out Thatcher, Madchester, the Hacienda, the IRA bomb, the Commonwealth Games, D:Percussion, Manchester's noughties retail revival, Anthony 'Mr Manchester' Wilson and Frank Sidebottom.

But now, a government intent on an ideological stripping of much that is valuable about Britain has forced the fickle finger of the Arts Council to flick this amazing venue off its books.

I spent many hours in the Greenroom helping build its Greenroom United archive site by interviewing friendly punters and artists of all different shapes and colours, from Graham Massey to Lip Service to Franko B. Editing the audio of those chats late into the evening gave me an awesome sense of history about the place.

I also became part of an exhibition called We Were Spending Precious Time, in which I gave my own walking tour of Manchester. You can see me featured in the first video on the Precious Time site (that's me at the very start).

I played a gorilla at the Cabaret Formerly Known As Bucket, which still rates as one of the greatest performances by any actor, living, dead or future.

The Greenroom is part of me in several ways, then. The Financial Times called the cuts a "surprisingly bloodless affair". My blood is boiling. I'm going to set Frank B on 'em.

This decision stinks of an arts body playing it safe in the extreme. The Greenroom is an awkward, gangly 28-year-old and not the Latest Big Thing. I like awkward, gangly 28-year-olds.

The thought that the Greenroom's future may not be so rosy fills me with horror. There is no organisation in Manchester that will take risks with performers on the same scale, with the same support, and with the same acceptance of failure and success as sides of the same coin.

The Greenroom's future must be secured.

Greenroom director Garfield and his staff face some crucial decisions. One thing is certain: the Greenroom has lots of friends it can call on. The picture at the top of this post is my gorilla character being led by cabaret host Gareth Cutter, and overlayed over that is the name of every artist whose story was told on the occasion of the venue's 25th birthday.

There are so many names, you can barely see me emoting gorillaness like the actor that I am.

See the full list of people here. See a larger version of the picture on Twitpic.

Now get onto the Arts Council and complain.

See also: thoughts from The Drunken Chorus; thoughts from Cutteruption. If you have also defended the Greenroom on your blog, let me know in the comments and I'll link it here.

There goes the hear: Manchester has enough gigs

2011-03-29T14:49:00.000+01:00

Manchester has the best music scene in the UK, according to a poll by Music Week.

3,000 people were asked if they had enough live music gigs in their area. Manchester scored the most yes results, followed by Newcastle and Nottingham.

A PRS spokesperson contends that "Manchester has always been a hot contender as music capital of the UK," and this will no doubt be hailed as a victory by the likes of Now Wave, Islington Mill and so on.

However, look at that survey question again: "I have enough local gigs in my area.”

Now imagine you are a city centre resident who has had one too many sleepless nights from revellers kicking bus shelters and screaming in a drunken haze at their partners in the street. How would they answer the question?

I reckon they'd think there were enough gigs too.

Manchester's response should be as surprising as it is simple. We have enough gigs. Manchester is full up for gigs. No more gigs, please.

Let's have a moratorium on live music in Manchester. Just temporary, for about ten years or so. Not a string strummed, not a skin drummed, not a tune hummed. Let a terrifyingly silence descend on this city like an audio shroud.

It will be awkward. Musicians will either leave town or get a job with the Co-op. Historians will refer back to this time as the Dead Years, with Market Street buskers slumped by empty hats and clubbers crying into their spliffs in Sankeys.

But, my friends, it will be worth it. Think of Liverpool's continual guitar-jangling efforts to escape their Merseybeat past, or Southend's gothic rockers trying to drown out the memory of Procul Harum.

In the meantime, Manchester will lie in a holy silence, resting, planning, storing its energy until 2021, when suddenly and without warning, every musician from every corner of this Bezforsaken city will burst into a cacophonous and all-encompassing wall of music that will devastate every other music scene that has ever existed.

It's the only way forward for the best music scene in the UK.

Just a caveat, though: if we are going to do this, can we wait until I've seen Kylie on Saturday? Thanks.

This blog is jenerally only bothered with blokes with the initials JB

2011-03-27T20:13:00.005+01:00

James Blunt

Blunt is arguably Britain's greatest living vocalist, treading a fine line between sounding like Mick Hucknall from Simply Red and a home counties Jimmy Krankie. He was once unpopular, but then his mum went on radio and controlled the listening public with her mind rays. James Blunt has won Never Mind The Buzzcocks a record 27 times, beating Lee Ryan from Blue, Dappy from N Dubz and Cliff Richard from Cliff Richard.

James Blake

Blake is arguably Britain's greatest living vocalist and continues a long tradition of doo wop in the electronic music sub-genre known as dubstep. According to the 2011 Guinness World Records, he is the smallest known recording artist, but that is no surprise considering his tender age of four. James Blake plays many of his gigs during the daytime because sub-bass frequencies travel less well in the dark.

Justin Biebpipe

Biebpipe is arguably Britain's greatest living vocalist alongside fellow YouTube stars such as Chocolate Rain Guy, Keyboard Cat and Stephen Fry Sings Pantera. His babyish good looks are the result of post-accident plastic surgery following a rollerblading collision with a balloon full of hot oil being towed by a ferociously drunk David Hasselhoff. Justin Biebpipe's natural physical state is one of entropy and desolation.

Jeff Buckley & John Barrowman

Although Buckley and Barrowman are arguably Britain's greatest living vocalists, their famous cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah will be remembered as one of the worst duets of all time. Buckley's delicate soul voice and his wan physique sat fairly well with the song, but it was generally considered a mismatch with John Barrowman's show tune style and his insistence on ending every line with "well, howdaya like THAT!"

Jeff Beck & the Jonas Brothers

Beck and the Brothers were once known as arguably Britain's greatest living vocalists. It was a tragedy then that they were all killed in a landslide of emotion following the death of James Brown. Brown's tragic demise struck a strong emotional chord with the public and for weeks following his death, newspapers ran repeated headlines speculating about his Sex Machine theme park, his nine masked children and his relationship with his doctor, Mr Shipman. After he became ill, James Brown sued himself for writing I Feel Good. Jeff Beck & the Jonas Brothers were 63 and are survived by two husbands and six children.

John Barry

Barry (pictured above) is arguably Britain's greatest living vocalist and shares a passion with people called JB. In 1926, he married folk singer Joan Baez and was instrumental in her being jailed after he encouraged her to poke a police officer in the eye with a violin bow. Following their divorce, he wedded legendary r 'n' b singer Jocelyn Brown, although the marriage didn't last after he encouraged a violin bow to poke a police officer in the eye with Jocelyn Brown. The much-missed John Barry wrote music for Jason Bourne or something.

Jungle Brothers (the Jive Bunny remixes)--- okay, that's enough - ed.

Four massive things that don't go bleep: open mics, exhibition, two competitions

2011-03-17T00:40:00.002Z

You may know me as an electronic music guru made from silicone, cryogenically frozen Moog synths and deep fried Orbital loops. But I have four more strings to my ~~bow~~ lyre*.

The first string is my umpteenth reading for the Bad Language open mic night at one of Manchester's pubbiest pubs, The Castle on Oldham Street. At past readings, I have imitated Yorkshire men imitating American schoolgirls, talked about the gutting of dead tooth fairies and peeled the text of a story off my reddened chest. What gimmick shall I masquerade as serious literature at the next Bad Language? Come along and see, on Wednesday March 23rd.

And while I'm twanging that first string, you'll also find me performing at the Manchester Twestival at NoHo on March 24th. The Manchester Twestival is a localised version of a much bigger global mission to raise cash for charity through social media. I'll be at what's called a 'pop up literary salon', which sounds like a hairdresser made from cardboard but it is not. If you do buy a ticket, you can raise money for the Wood Street Mission too.

My second string is coming up very shortly, and that's an art exhibition starting tonight. Surgery of Dreams is an otherwise-respectable composer and musician Michael Mayhew scalpelling out the innards of antique books and replacing their guts with found objects, such as shotgun cardtridges, skulls (check the amazing skull on the website) and, gulp, the cast of a vagina. Which I poked with my finger the other day. Gently. The launch is in my bookshop tonight, it will be hosted by me and you should definitely come. The exhibition runs until April 20th.

My third string (hurrah, we have a chord!) is a short story competition I have cobbled together with the original protagonists of the so-called Beatoff Generation. Except now, we are respectable because this is part of the Chorlton Arts Festival. The Flash Mob Writing Competition (see here the Twitter page) is asking for stories of 500 words or less by April 29th, which is otherwise known as That Bloody Royal Wedding Day. All the rules and requirements can be found on our funky red Flash Mob website. This is the Festival's first ever flash fiction competition and all shortlisted entrants will get to read their tales at a special reading and awards night on May 26th with little old me and my chums.

My fourth string has somewhat snapped, only because it naturally sounds of sadness and failure. The F1 Losers League is back once again this year. It's a unique competition which flips the usual fantasy league formula to celebration of the stragglers and also-rans in the world's most high-tech sport. The F1 Losers League will close to entries in the early hours of March 26th, at the beginning of qualifying in Australia. So to take part, you need to get your entry in pretty sharp-ish.

So then. Exhibition launch tomorrow night, Bad Language on Wednesday 23rd. Manchester Twestival on the 24th. F1 Losers League entries before March 26th (winner announced December 1st). Flash Mob Writing Competition now and until April 29th, with the main event on May 26th.

*altered due to comment, below

NASA-bass p-funk synths bark like slow motion dogs: some recent(ish) 12"s and EPs

2011-03-13T20:16:00.001Z

S>>D whiffs more than a little of Autechre, what with the ominous chords drizzling themselves over fuzzed-up snares, but I'm not complaining when the 33 EP cooks up delicacies like Protovision, a track which takes a vanilla breakbeat and drags its bleeding corpse across Satan's kitchen floor before funneling it into a pit of echoey, gooey melancholia. Lovely, even though it's left me with confused cookery metaphors.

Starkey's Space Traitor EP is the sound of this Philadelphia boy having an immmense amount of fun with the science fiction movie score that must be running through his brain all the time. NASA-bass p-funk synths bark like slow motion dogs. Ital Tek is among the numerous remixes, but best track is one of his originals - Holodeck - which also has a vocal sample that sums up this whole enterprise (yes, that was a sci fi pun): "the sounds of man in space." Roll on Captain Starkey's next mission.

Record of the week / day / hour / shake of a lamb's tail must go to the first in a series of collaborations from All City Records called, wait for it, Collabs #1. In this opening slab of electronic goodness, wafer-thin drum & bass exile Martyn (pictured above) gets his dubstep on with Lucky Me's son of a jazzman Mike Slott. It's housey but it's good house and is the sound of two brilliant producers dancing a dense fandango.

Photo adapted from one taken by The End.

A helpful pie chart to summarise Fat Roland On Electronica

2011-03-09T12:43:00.002Z

Welcome to the various new bloggers I met at last night's Manchester Blogmeet (#mcrblogmeet).

Fat Roland On Electronica is a murky old water in which sardines come in their millions to die. I hope the pie chart (above) helps explain a little more about what goes on around here. Click for bigger.

I'll thrash together a blogmeet write-up in due course. Huge thanks must go to I Love To Love, who sponsored the meeting and infused the whole enterprise with the aroma of quality leather (one of my childhood-memory smells, along with bike oil), to Common Bar for being helpful and jovial hosts, and to Manchizzle for getting the whole thing up and running before being struck down with a lurgy caught from her (very cute) wee bairn.

Meanwhile, here's my new favourite band. Enjoy.

Hammer time for Fatty Bumchops: how to blog properly

2011-03-06T22:34:00.002Z

The best developed, most cohesive, and most robust blogging scene in the UK.

These were the words, carefully prefixed with 'arguably', scribbled by the Manchester Blog Awards last year. With the next Manchester Blogmeet nearly upon us (this Tuesday!), I thought I'd give a few wibblings about my little corner of the blogging scene in 2011.

I find myself in a very different position from this time last year. I always saw myself on the edges of blogging in the same way I played around on the edges of DJing. A few blogmeets and awards later, I'm somewhere near the somewhat crowded centre. Of one of the many centres.

What started as a way of plugging my DJing activities became, well, a scene in which I hang out with bloggers (retro gaming the other night), perform with bloggers (at the Bad Language events), get consulted about blogging (websitey people asking for advice) and help other bloggers connect (having a hand in the Manchester Blogmeet, for example).

Part of this is graft: I gave up my telly for these paragraph's you're currently smooching with your eyes. Part of this is also my belief that blogging has to be about connection in this proper physical world of real things. It has to make a difference, even if it's just someone in a shed in Preston giving encouragement to a struggling writer sweating it out in a birdhouse in Portsmouth.

What I love about Manchester's blogging scene is the rag-tag jumble of blogs of different shapes and sizes: the SEO-heads, the musicistas, the foodies, the hyperlocals, the poets or the whimsical neither-here-nor-theres.

And everyone's so busy all of the time. It's a well-developed and professional scene that is strong enough to say to companies wanting to capitalize on our content or ideas: "thanks for your interest, now give us some money."

The nice thing about the Manchester Blogmeet is it brings everyone down the same level and it humanises what is often a solitary pursuit. I'm not going to spool off a rollcall of recommended blogs here, although this post has inspired me to ditch and re-start my Fat Friends in the right-hand column of this site.

What I would say is if you run a blog and you're in Manchester, be encouraged. You're part of a bustling scene of tapped-in letters in darkened rooms, whatever the focus of your blog.

I thought I'd finish with some advice. People often ask me about blogging because they think I know stuff. It always goes like this:

- Hey Fatso, should I publish my blog in 150 different languages and reduce the text to six-point?
- Don't do that. People might not read your blog.

- Hey Fats, should I smear my blog page in crusty lobster paste?
- Don't do that. People might not read your blog.

- Hey Fatty Bumchops, should I ditch the tired old media of computers and fire my blog out of a tube instead?
- Yes, definitely do that, then everyone will read your blog.

I like being asked, so here are few basic pointers about running a blog the Fat Roland way, concentrating mainly on sins I myself have committed on these very pages.

Fat Roland's ten blog tips

1. If you want a wider readership, make your blog about something. I deliberately put 'Electronica' into my title to Ronseal this whole dang operation. I hope I've proved you can be specialist and still be accessible.

2. Most of your hits are probably very casual browsers. You want them to stick around, right? Then don't splash eye-pain all over your blog. Start by getting rid of that black background.

3. As for your content, edit, edit, edit. Write a sentence then halve it. Use short paragraphs. Short sentences and not ones that go on so long you've lost track of how the sentence started in the first place because you didn't read my advice about writing a sentence then halving it which is what I just wrote in a previous sentence which, entirely non-ironically, was twice the length before I edited it down unlike this one which has gone one so long you've lost track of how the sentence started in the first place because I didn't read my advice [breathe!] are definitely better than long ones. See?

4. Check your facts. Pressing 'publish' and hoping you're right is not good enough. And reading something on one website is not fact-checking. Learn to do proper Google research.

5. Collaborate. Don't type in a vacuum. Contribute to other people's blogs, leave comments, link generously and meet other bloggers (starting with the blogmeet this Tuesday).

6. Post regularly. I've really struggled this past month to keep up with my blogging and I think my sites have suffered as a result. Set yourself a target and stick to it (mine is 120 posts a year).

7. A bit of design wouldn't go amiss. My blog is a pretty recognisable Blogger template, but I've added a bit of extra visual goodness. All of my design, apart from my masthead, is done using Microsoft Paint and a crappy picture editing programme called Piknik. Even a five-year-old sandwich could use those programs.

8. Give up your telly. No, really. If you're watching Corrie when you know you should be blogging, then you have decided that watching Corrie is more important than your blogging. Smash it in with a hammer. The only danger then is, if you are smashing in your television with a hammer instead of blogging, you have decided that smashing things in with hammers is more important than blogging. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

9. It's not about the stats. People should be able to find your blog in any way they see how, and if that means parallel Facebook posts and letting people read the full text on Google Reader, both of which I would assume takes away clicks from your actual site itself, then so be it.

10. It's only a blog. Lighten up. Jeez. Why are you even reading this? Turn off the computer. Get out. Go for a walk. Let the wind furrow into your brain-hair. You'll be a better blogger producing better content with a mind clear of cobwebs.

Is Fat Roland my real father? Norwegian woof. click

2011-02-22T22:43:00.000Z

I thought I would like February more than I liked January. However, if January was a rat-infested tin house in a forest full of dead baboons, then February is the lice-ridden mulch underneath the festering welcome mat of the rat-infested tin house in the forest full of dead baboons.

And so, to lift me a few measly iota above this interminable funk I seem to be in (I can't even get excited about Cool Runnings being on iPlayer), I thought I'd do a quick update on my whereabouts.

Firstly, you can hear me read one of my short stories if you're in Manchester tomorrow night. If you heard me read at Waterstone's rather eccentric open mic night at the end of last year, you'd have heard tomorrow's story before. Otherwise, come listen to my fairy story at the Bad Language open mic night, at the Castle Hotel on Oldham Street. There will be many other writers, so I only have four minutes in which to impress you.

Secondly, my presenting partner Lee and I will reunite in a public performance for the first time since the well-documented Refresh FM debacle. We'll be running the next Special Guessed pub quiz at the somewhat super King's Arms pub in Salford on March 1st (8.30pm). I'd love it if we got a decent crowd to this: it would certainly mean a lot to me. We'll fill your pants with so much trivia, you'll be shaking it out of your trouser ends like the UNCLE guy in the Great Escape.

And finally, there's always my F1 Losers League, which I have banged on about before, but which now has an extended entry deadline of March 26th. Visit the website for more.

Yes, this blog is meant to be about electronic music. Pfffrt. If you want consistency of content, go and read The Pigeon Post. I have been a bit shoddy recently, but there'll be more music witterings soon, honest. Meanwhile, here is a list of search terms that haven't resulted in recent hits on my blog:

- junglist Richard Madeley
- Norwegian wool
- a cacophony of roses
- the holy trinity of Rudy's Rare Records, Cool Runnings and Rastamouse
- Justin Biepbipe
- is Fat Roland my real father
- turnpike Birmingham rocking chair crew
- Norwegian woof
- cheap supermarket toothpaste
- Venetian Snarls

I am downloading the James Blake album

2011-02-14T07:07:00.001Z

I am downloading the James Blake album.

Digital kilobytes of James Blake are swooshing into my memory like recalled jokes or déjà vu.

James Blake is now sitting inside my machine, next to my Yorkshire holiday photos, discarded Ableton sessions and my Justin Biebpipe love poetry.

Listening to this album will be like a thousand swan feathers brushing my cheek in the breeze from the breath of a million angels.

Pressing play on track one will be like the tentative moment before a teenage kiss, that giddy feeling of nascent love-- oh hold on, the computer's crashed. Let me just press restart.

Sorry about this. It takes a while to reboot. Full of viruses, this thing.

So then. Done anything interesting recently? Oh, here we go. Let me just find the mp3s again.

Oh great, it's lost them. Thanks, computer, you galoofing mess of catastrophic circuitry. You've ruined everything.

I don't want to listen to the James Blake album now. That would be like listening to the wails of whales speared in a bloody sea. Like the last sighs of a cherubim skewered on a cackling devil's pitchfork.

Cocksocks.

Kilobytes of James Blake lie dead in my computer, exhausted sonic sperm on the sidelines of my digital tubes.

Mr and Mrs Spotify plug my oozing holes

2011-02-09T10:49:00.000Z

I usually cough up a monthly Oozy Bleeps playlist around about now, but January is to decent electronic music what a trip to Disneyworld is to Charlie Brooker.

And the meagre crumbs that were released in January appear not to be on Spotify. At least, not the ones I want. As Glasgow collective Lucky Me tweeted a few days ago, "Spotify will never pay folks like us because they refuse editorial: they are only sales responsive."

It's a strange animal, Spotify. The Cynical Musician is right when he asks if Spotify is not a money maker, what is it good for.

Putting revenue aside (I'll let proper musicians discuss that), as a music lover, it's about as useful as a chocolate tea cosy. My recent plays on Spotify include Resoe, SBTRKT and Flying Lotus. What is the front page recommending to me at the moment? Bonnie Tyler, Mozart and Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise.

It's almost as if Mr and Mrs Spotify in their little green Spotify cottage with their little green Spotify umbrellas took a look at Amazon's cookie-monster recommendations system and thought, "no, that won't do, that won't do at all. What we want is the equivalent of walking into Starbucks to buy a coffee and being sold wellington boots instead."

Spotify is good for playlist recommendation, hence my oozing and my bleeping, but when whole record labels are missing from the service because Spotify can't put food on their table - can't even give them a table - then what's the point?

Anyway, the Oozy Bleeps will bleep again next month. I will soldier on with Spotify because, I hope, some of you find it useful. The playlist is still up there, and it will be updated throughout the month.

F1 apocalypse (or 'fantasy league', depending on which term you prefer)

2011-02-06T20:49:00.002Z

So far this February, this blog has been like London at the start of 28 Days Later. Abandoned buildings. Unread newspapers. Car alarms punturing the silence of desertion.

But screw all that: I've been busy reviving an old project which long-time readers of this blog will recognise.

The F1 Losers League is my attempt at a fantasy formula one competition, with the crucial difference that you need to create the worst possible team. So you get points if your cars are slow, unreliable or crashy.

I wanted to come up with some F1 / electronica puns so I could shoe horn (car horn?) the league into this blog without making it look like an obvious (spark)plug. But all I've come up with so far is Apex Twin, James Brake and Bargeboards of Canada.

The F1 Losers League works like this: you make up a team of four drivers and two constructors. Based on bad performance on and off the track, they earn you points in races and sometimes inbetween races. Everyone pays a fiver and up to seven teams will win cashmoney.

I've run this league on-and-off since 2004, so I know those who get the most out of it tend to have at least a passing interest in formula one. It also helps if you have an inner geek because there are ways of manipulating your team throughout the season.

Have a look at the league on the F1 Losers website. You need to enter before the zombies come and tear out your heart, or until the second week of March (whichever comes sooner).

FLYING LOTUS! The most obvious pun ever! Why didn't I think of that? I always think of good things way too late.

Edit: see the comments section below for two more doozies: Saubers of Paradise and Susumu Toyota. Feel free to add your own!

Blood sugar synths felines: some almost-recent tracks worth your attention

2011-01-31T07:08:00.000Z

The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Didn't expect that, did you? Red Hot Chili Peppers. There, I said it again.

No, I'm not talking about the tongue-busting offspring of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanasomething-or-other. I'm talking about the wiley shirtless guitar plodders who appear to have gone afro pop.

Actually, I'm taking about John Frusciante, who dumped the Chilis in 2007 but has now turned up as one part of Speed Dealer Moms with legendary bass-driller Venetian Snares. This is a live experimental project consisting of those boys, Chris McDonald, a bunch of drum machines (gear, pictured) and, in the band's words, "many cats".

Their first release is the Speed Dealer Moms EP, a short and bitter chunk of tapping distracto-grooves recorded as-live in 2010 that will frighten Chili poppers but may sound somewhat familiar to Snares followers.

While I'm perusing recent tracks (mainly from the end of last year), I've been addicted to Rafferties's Rank Functions EP. The title track is a 2step tech stormer on his own Super label that turned my pants brown, but check those warm chords in His Counting House or the out-and-out house snap of Horse Flesh. Suddenly, I feel Raffertie has "arrived" in that really pretentious way some people say "arrived".

Meanwhile, The Black Dog's latest offering is Subject To Delays. That's not an announcement for tardiness, but rather the name of their latest EP in their Music For Real Airports project which features rolling house and drifting ambience in equal measure.

Picture: modified from a Universo Frusciante snap.

Guest post: Crimes against crimes against keyboards

2011-01-26T01:16:00.001Z

I asked you for your nominations for the worst crimes committed against dance music, from which I picked a random winner. Jon Mann gets a bunch of mp3s and this guest post on Fat Roland On Electronica...

I would like to nominate The Black Eyed Peas –….I don’t actually know the name of the track although I should probably find out what it’s called before I start. You probably know the one I’m on about already, something about a good day. It’s probably called ‘a good day’.

It’s called ‘I got a feeling’ and it’s good night not day.

O.K so I can’t say that I’ve ever sat down to listen to it but I don’t need to, it was so popular when it was released that it became part of the wallpaper that belonged to time and place. That time and place, that thankfully is now behind us.

The production is actually not that offensive, it’s a poppy, upbeat, forgettable dance track. The most compelling evidence against it is in its lyrics. I might as well have not written anything here other than the lyrics.

Here is a sample which I will now cut and paste from somewhere on interwebs.

“go out and smash it
let go o' my guard
Jump off that sofa
Let’s get get up”

I’m suddenly impressed at just how throwaway and thoughtless these lyrics really are.

“I feel stressed out
I wanna let it go
Lets go way out spaced out
and losing all control”

That’s enough of that. To counteract any harmful side effects here are a few lines from Etchogon-S by Autechre

“…//.-*
/,.’];--
/’;[;[;
===*”

Better?

My point, if there is one, is that despite the song’s protagonist repeatedly claiming to have ‘the feeling’ the song itself is devoid of ‘the feeling’. Its only purpose is to fill a bit of space somewhere for a few minutes. Actually listening to this sort of stuff is a bit like going on a diet where you eat nothing but tile grout.

Will.i.am is very keen on his band having the right image, I read an interview with him in the Metro and he said so himself. This, I imagine is what prompted him to stop making vaguely listenable hip hop and get a sexy female singer that can piss herself at will while on stage. [Citation needed]

Dance music, electronic music are famously places where the anonymous artist can thrive, knocking out bass odysseys from a sweaty bedsit in Hackney, only emerging at night for skins and cigs from the all night garage. This is where the real shit is at. I’m not against artists having big personalities at all but for everyone’s sake please try to keep the music real and please keep the drums raw.

I suppose ‘I got a feeling’ wasn’t really designed for me. You could say ‘but it’s ok for the feeble minded to shake their limbs at’. Well yes, but we all have to suffer though don’t we? Something really needs to be done about this.

Basically we just need to play more Aphex.

Everyone, now.

This guest post was written by Jon Mann.

Crimes Against Keyboards: the winner

2011-01-25T10:29:00.000Z

Roll out the Bunty magazines and spank your carpets until they're dust-free. We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen.

Jon Mann has won the Crimes Against Keyboards competition. He bags himself Bleep.com's top 100 tracks of 2010, which probably means he'll need to build new shelves in his mp3 player to take all the extra weight.

Some fine people didn't win, including Compound Ear who used my logo and said really nice things about my blog and refers to his chosen dance music nemesis as an "aural holocaust". But I'm happy Jon won because I like his rant too. It will appear later today as guest post on Fat Roland On Electronica.

Jon, who describes himself as 29-years-old and an Aquarius (I'm *so* turning this blog into a dating site) says:

"Just really happy to be the lucky one who got selected for the prize. Just dropping it into itunes now :-)

"I've picked up a couple of these tracks over the course of the year but I'm really looking forward to hearing something good that passed me by in 2010."

Meanwhile, Bleep's top 100 is available on their site until February 10th. I know you can probably stream or steal a bunch of brilliant tunes from last year, but downloading this lot at 30 pence a track is a pretty impressive one-hit way of downloading the state of dance music today. Like Keanu downloading martial arts in Something's Gotta Give (editor's note: check this is the right film).

And no, I wasn't paid to say that. Long-time readers of this site know I'm a sucker MC for all things Warp-related.

Watch this space for Jon's winning entry and proof that people who, shock horror, don't have a blog can write blog posts too.

You have 23 hours left in which to win 100 mp3s

2011-01-23T13:31:00.003Z

The deadline for my Crimes Against Keyboards mp3 competition is tomorrow (Monday) at noon. If you haven't entered already, here's what you need to do:

- Decide on dance music's worst moment. It could be an awful band, a novelty hit, an established artist getting it horribly wrong, or a wider trend towards crapdom.

- Write about it. Either blog it or email something to dj at fatroland.com. A couple of paragraphs will do, but longer rants are welcome too.

- One entrant will be randomly chosen as the winner. The prize will be bleep.com's top 100 tracks of 2010, worth thirty quid or thirty-five euros or fifty bucks. You'll get a voucher code which I have secretly snuggled in my nappy.

It really is that easy.

FAQs

Here is a frequently-asked question list for those not yet swayed to enter.

Q. What is an mp3?

A. It stands for music plop-plop-plop, which is the sound mp3s make when they load into the mini record players contained within white i-pod headphones.

Q. Is Justin Biebpipe in the list of 100 tracks included in the prize?

A. Technically no. Although you can re-create the Biebpipe magic by riding a skateboard as you listen. Why not fashion your hair into a bouffanted cowpat? And remember to brush your teeth for that winning Justin smile as you utter the words, "yeah, I'm the white-boy Usher, so what?"

Q. Can I listen to these songs on the train?

A. Many express services have special listening points, in which you plug your CD player into a bucket of cold sandwiches congealed with fake cheese, leaked Stella and the sweat - and other bodily fluids - of a thousand pimply buffet car assistants.

Q. What if I don't like the music?

A. I've done a survey of my teddy bears and 280% of them liked 104% of the tracks. 28% of them also would vote Conservative, but that's neither here nor there. I'm constantly barraged with people asking for recommendations of the latest hippety-grunge popstep disco classics. There's no better way to super-charge your ears with the high-fat cream of the current crop than getting your hairy mitts on Bleep's top 100. I'm a genuine fan of the site and that's why I'm doing this competition.

Q. Why can't think of any bad dance music?

A. You have no ears. And no brain. Just write. You may surprise yourself. And if you don't do this, the Venga Boys have won.

Crimes Against Keyboards: win Bleep.com's top 100 tracks of 2010

2011-01-17T09:16:00.001Z

There's a moment in the middle of Eiffel 65's Blue (Da Ba Dee) when you realise all of dance music, from Detroit to Sheffield, from EBM to IDM, has led to this: a bunch of smurfoids that look like they've been CGIed by a blind horse.

Which makes me think: there's a competition in this.

There have been many crimes committed against electronic music over the years. All you need to do is write about the worst moment in dance music, and next week I'll pull an entrant out of my disco hat. That winner will get Bleep.com's top 100 tracks of 2010, worth £30, plus a priceless mention on my blog when I announce the result.

What do you write about?

It could be a sin by your favourite synth god* or the most disastrous diversion in dance music**. And yes, I do mean dance music however you interpret it, from Basshunter to Brian Eno, from the Chemical Brothers to Chromeo, from Aphex Twin to Adamski.

How do you write it?

Post it on your blog. Or if you don't have a blog, email your text to me directly: dj at fatroland.com. Between 50 and 500 words will do. All I ask is your arguments are convincing (even if only in an ironic way) and are non-libellous.

Will I read it?

Yes, every entry. To ensure your entry gets noticed, include "Crimes Against Keyboards" in your title line or near the start of your text. Feel free to publish the above graphic. And if blogging, pop a link into the comments section below this post.

How long have I got?

The closing date is noon on Monday, January 24th 2010. Blog posts or emails after that time will not be considered. No, Facebook is not a 'blog'. Don't post your rant in the comments below this post: that would just be annoying. One entry per person. Usual sensible competition rules apply.

In summary:

- write about the worst moment(s) in dance music;

- blog it, including a link in the comments below this post. Or email it (dj at fatroland).

- after noon on Monday 24th Jan, a random winner will get Bleep's top 100 tracks as a Bleep.com download code.

Oh and thank you to the lovely people at Bleep for proffering such a wonderful prize.

* For example, I always felt Orbital's The Saint seemed like a desperate grab for commercial success - the same feeling I get with Magnetic Man's I Need Air.

** For example, the whole of breakcore, Scooter, or that dubstep moment in Britney's new single.

Do stop believing: the rock music fad is over

2011-01-11T07:20:00.004Z

Thank goodness this awful guitar fad has passed. The moment the Beatles clanged out seven years worth of jangly pap, it was over before it started.

It was revealed yesterday that only three of the top 100 tracks of 2010 in the UK were rock songs, the best-selling of these being Glee's Don't Stop Believing.

If you're not aware of the Glee phenomenon, think of Miley Cyrus and Justin Biebpipe doing an ACDC covers tour. Now replace Miley and Justin with a baboon flinging its own excrement, and replace ACDC with every treasured memory you've ever had. That's Glee.

It turns out guitars were just a temporary fad. All those bedroom garage bands banging out noisy chords and committing it to four-track in a cousin's shed? It was the musical equivalent of space hoppers, Tab cola and happy slapping.

Now HMV have a golden ticket for turning their sales around. Have half their shops sell only neo-rave, breakcore and 8bit Kraftwerk classics, while have the other half contain hundreds of burning Fender Stratocasters, constantly on fire like sick Olympic flames and proffered worshipful sacrifices by a rock-hating public.

Here, god of guitar-death, have my collection of coloured Green Day vinyl I just smashed with a hammer, thanks be to Aphex.

Truth is, of course, guitars have never been popular. A quick finger through the UK's top ten best selling singles of all time shows all we really care about is Elton John, Boney M and (shudder) Robson And Jerome. The rockiest tracks are by the Beatles, Wings in Kintyre-mode and those bastians of death metal, Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

The shroud of lies perpetuating the rock myth has fallen and we can get back to good honest dance music like Black Eyes Peas, Basshunter and Doop.

All those annoying acronyms to memorise guitar strings can revert to something sensible like Every Band Goes Dance, Amen Evermore. And we can all have our hair short. And we can wash. With water and everything. We may even use soap. Imagine that.

Rock is dead. Long live Jean Michel Jarre's impending Autechre remix album.

(Please send letters of complaint to Axl Rose, A Hammock, Backstage At The O2 Arena, Londinium, 1LLU 51ON.)

Fader strokers unite: some recommended compilation albums

2011-01-10T07:17:00.000Z

Speaking as the UK's leading proponent of the Chicago footwork dance style, I was delighted to see Bangs & Works come out recently on Planet Mu Records.

If you're not aware of the footwork phenomenon, it's halfway between a breakdance stand-off and an epileptic version of the riverdance. Planet Mu, that UK staple of electronic music, spent over a year tracking down footwork proponent DJ Nate in preparation for this album.

Bangs & Works Vol 1 is 25 tracks of bad-talkin' dubstep-influenced dirty Chicago dance music, none of the artists I've heard of, but which brings to mind the evolution of nu skool breaks by Adam Freeland and Burial's more sample-heavy moments.

By the way, I lied. I'm not the leading proponent of the Chicago footwork dance style. If I was, the result would be somewhat akin to the punchline to the old joke, "what do you get if you cross an elephant with a kangaroo".

Another compilation worth its smelling salts is Ghostly International's retrospective We'll Never Stop Living This Way: A Ghostly Primer featuring 11 years of works by artists that have since become bleepists du jour:, including Gold Panda (glitchy and fuzzy), Loscil (floaty and melodic), Matthew Dear (robotic and dark) and Dabrye (laidback and loose).

If you get the album, you also get a Ghostly Book, which inevitably will carry a photo taken in the 1840s of someone you saw at the Morrisson's cheese counter last Sunday. That's how ghostly books work. You see someone in the book and then you die or your hair turns white or Jack Nicholson gets all axey on you.

Meanwhile, Manchester's greatest fader-strokers have come together for Mind On Fire's debut album proper, Great Minds (aka Mind On Fire 005). The bringers of Fire have been promoting nights in God's great city for six years. although this album feels very much like an opening salvo in the war against bad music.

It includes Detroit-smooth beats from XXXY (featured by Fabric before now), G Kut's bhangra-wobble Dance Of The Cuttlefish and Neko Neko's inappropriately-named Fast which takes Plaid's trademark synth sound and smothers it with Boards Of Canada dreaminess. More of the same, please.

The photo above is G Kut at the DPercussion festival and is one of a number of excellent photos taken by Flickr user Rufus A. My favourites are these Durham arches, and eerie singer and this picture of a floating dog trying to fold itself up.

Here's Stephen Hawking's less successful brother Paul to tell you more about Mind On Fire...

26 Mixes For Cats: gratuitous twits and puns

2011-01-06T22:24:00.003Z

Twitter is like the entertaining uncle who gets his willy out and stamps on furry animals while old grandfather Facebook sits sullenly in the corner with his hoop 'n' stick and faded photos of a trip to Blackpool he took with MySpace back in the 1920s.

Which is why I ran a competition to win a compilation CD to celebrate my 5,000th tweet. The winners were Rob Gregg, Ani Smith, Lee Moore, Gareth Cutter and Ian Breen. They'll be getting an exciting handmade disc of some of my favourite choons, each sporting arty scribblings aimed directly at them (pictured above).

In other unconnected tweetery, I went pun mad yesterday. Because I've had the phrase "Selected Ambient Worms" in my head for months, I started tweeting some Aphex Animals. It caught on and it saw me 'trending' on Twitter alongside other hot Manchester Twitter topics as Emmerdale, MCFC and One Direction's Zayn Malik.

Here are the Aphex Animals (hashtag #aphexanimals) that my trusty followers and I came up with. If you know Aphex Twin's output, you'll get the idea pretty quickly. Thanks to everyone who dug into their punnery dungeons for this little lot:

- 26 Mixes For Cats
- 26 Mixes For Daschunds
- 54 Cymru Bees
- 54cymru Beast
- Acrid Avid Hamster Shred
- Alpaca (which is based on, I had to be reminded, a Tuss track. Not that The Tuss and Aphex Twin are in any way connected, of course. Not at all.)
- Analogue Puppybath
- Antalord
- Black Widow Licker
- Cock/Ver10 (which is less of a pun and more of, um, an actual track. A track, incidentally, which I accidentally played in a shop at the Lowry Retail Mall without remembering the rather fruity language halfway through.)
- Come On, You Slugs!
- Come On You Stags
- Come To Tabby
- Dodecaheron
- Dododecahedron
- Dolphium (the one of which I am secretly proudest)
- Duckqs
- Dukqs
- Fenix Skunk 5
- Gnu Calx
- Hangable Auto Bull
- Hart as you mean to go on
- I Bear Because You Do
- Kangaridoo
- Lamalord 10
- Laughable Butane Dog
- Mike and Ostrich
- Milklamb
- Monkey Rhubarb
- Moth
- Next Sheep With
- Polynomial Seahorse
- Prezambeetle
- Reunicorn 2
- Richard Bee James Album
- Selected Ambient Worms
- We Are The Gnu-Sic Makers
Edit: Some of these have been added later. See the comments.

All of this Timfoolery (which I have just made up and is a reference to Tim Vine) reminds me of the other time when I went pun mad on Twitter. In July last year, I realised that the whole of rock history boiled down to, well, a kettle of fish.

So I raved about Eels re-recording the Prodigy's Music For A Jellied Generation, and Professor Brian Carps playing keyboards on D:Bream's Things Can Only Get Battered.

My followers and I namechecked Fish from Marrillion, Stingray from The Police, Gill Scott-Watch-Out-For-That-Heron and Mackerel Jazz from the band Hakeless (the ones that had a hit with Cod Is A DJ). And then there were tunes like Future Trout of London's Papua New Guppy and Underworld's album Dubnobasswithmyheadman (which only works if you mispronounce 'bass').

We debated the merits of real non-punning tracks such as Scooter's How Much Is The Fish, Stump's fish-themed Buffalo, Mr Scruff's Fish and also Red Deer Club's The Sound Of Fish mixes.

At one point, I started shouting things like "Injected with a poissons! We don't need sprat any more", "Everybody in the plaice, let's go!" and "Salmon haddock go if you think you're shark enough." Someone warned that my followers might clam up. I ended up promising that "I shoal net post any more."

And they say Twitter is more grown up than Facebook...

Fat Roland's Oozy Bleeps playlist #2

2011-01-04T07:25:00.000Z

You've eaten the tinsel and you've spent two weeks farting turkey. Let's clear the air a bit, shall we, with the latest installment of my Fat Roland's Oozy Bleeps Playlist. This is my monthly foray into the grey-green world of Spotify whereupon I upload new and recent electronica to a rolling playlist.

Here's January's fabulous 13... let this be your earworm.

Launch the playlist in Spotify

Raffertie - Rank Functions from the Rank Functions EP (Super 2010)

Subvert - Speaker Humpin (Mark Instinct remix) from Speaker Humpin Remixed (Muti Music 2010)

Lorn - What's The Use from the album Nothing Else (Brainfeeder 2010)

Eskmo - We Got More from the album Eskmo (Ninja Tune 2010)

Darkstar - North from the album North (Hyperdub 2010)

Denis Jones - Clap Hands from the album Red + Yellow = (Humble Soul 2010)

iTAL tEK - Talis from the album Midnight Colour (Planet Mu 2010)

Girl Unit - Wut (Night Slugs 2010)

Teebs - You've Changed from the album Ardour (Brainfeeder 2010)

Eskmo - Moving Glowstream from the album Eskmo (Ninja Tune 2010)

Seefeel - Faults from the album Seefeel (Warp, forthcoming in 2011)

Luke Abbott - Brazil from the album Holkham Drones (Border Community 2010)

Daft Punk - Tron Legacy (End Titles) from the OST album Tron:Legacy (Walt Disney (!) 2010)

Launch the playlist in Spotify