Selected tweeted works: pigs, peanuts, Paul, pricks and polywonk

Sometimes I go onto Twitter then I give my opinions on Twitter and then I expect the whole of Twitter reads it and think "thank goodness that guy put something on Twitter".

If you are not on Twitter, you're in luck, because I'm about to spew some tweets all over this blog. Here are some highlights from my recent Twitter feed. And by "high", I mean "pretty low" and by "lights" I mean the encroaching darkness that will one day swallow us whole. 

Enjoy my stupid thoughts.

1. Genres
A guide to the different types of ambient music. 1. Ambient = chill-out music. 2. Hambient = pig-out music. 3. Diagrambient = lay-out music. 4. Wigwambient = camp-out music. 5. Victoria Beckhambient = out of your mind featuring dane bowers music.

2. Clock part one
Even a stopped cook gives the right thyme twice a plate.

3. Rockers
Have you noticed how heavy metal fans can't wink? Every single one of them. Now I've pointed it out, you'll spot it all the time. Heavy metal fans. Can't wink. Or crochet.

4. Snack part one
I ate some peanuts. Licked each one clean good and proper. Sang them one-hit wonders.

5. New year
I can't reveal my sources, but I've heard the only music we'll be allowed to listen to in 2022 is Roxette.

6. Pricked
I had my booster jab today. On leaving the pharmacy, a phalanx of seahorses escorted me on a hammock of golden plumes into the street then dumped me in a puddle. Please advise.

7. Snack part two
I'm eating Mentos and drinking Diet Coke. Pray for me.

8. Shopping
I once spotted Paul McCartney in a Currys. He was shoplifting three hoovers, trying to hide them in his enormous side flaps. He evaded security using his invisibility conch, while playing Eleanor Rigby through his gills. Three hoovers. What a guy.

9. Clock part two
I love that Orbital sample 'even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day unless it's a 24 hour clock in which case you probably paid a little more for it so why's it stopped ffs".

10. Indifference
No-one cares: a tweet reply hammered into the keyboard, shift key pressed with stressed-white fingers. No-one cares: a caption on a gif hurled at the internet, shattering on impact. No-one cares: the strained yelp of a purple veined man, scrunching his no-one cares face tattoo.

11. Reaction
"No PCR" is trending in the UK. Quite right. Can't stand Phil Collins Records.

12. Festive food
Remember, folks, you have until January 6th to eat your Christmas tree. Make sure you start at the thin end. Good luck!

13. Movies
Se7en should have been called 5even. The Fifth Element should have been called Th3 Fifth 3l3m3nt. The 4th Matrix film should have been called MatrIX. No reason. I just like things to be wrong and annoying.

14. List
There are some things I will just never understand no matter how hard I try, namely duck hands, the concept of jeleb, the word 'xthw))rd', cloud anvils and late-career polywonk.

15. Girl power
The Spice Girls would have been more successful if they'd been called the Spine Girls i.e. they were just a bunch of dancing spines. We're all thinking it.

16. Token
This tweet is an NFT. If you read it, you owe me 92 bits of ethereal coins or something.

17. Optimism
You know it's going to be a good day when you've laid a load of blue eggs and they start whistling Van McCoy's The Hustle. No? Just me? Suit yourself.

Further Fats: Tiny promises that get me through (2016)

Further Fats: Selected tweeted works: bagel, beards, bungs and beaches (2021)

Five things: from Spice Girls to Underworld with a bit of Toy Story inbetween

Here are five things I got up to this week.

1. Got proud

I went to Didsbury Pride, which is a celebration of LGBTQ+ people by Emmanuel church in Manchester, the church I went to for many years back in the olden days. It's a wonderful thing, and when I got there everyone was drinking spirits and dancing to the Spice Girls. I didn't recognise anyone, so I hung around awkwardly for ten minutes and then went home. Ah well. It's still a wonderful thing.

2. Got silly

I co-hosted Bad Language, the monthly spoken word night I run with Joe Daly. I'd missed the July one as I was in Edinburgh, so it was great to be back. And for some reason it was packed. Mid-week after a bank holiday weekend and everyone came out to party. Nutters, the lot of you. I'd been to a funeral earlier in the day, so it was just the tonic to be silly in front of an audience all night.

3. Got confused

This happened in a coffee shop:

Me: What drinks do you have that don't have tea or coffee in?
Barista: You don't drink coffee?
Me: No.
Barista: How about a tea?
Me: I don't drink tea. I'd like an iced drink.
2nd barista walking in: You don't drink coffee or ICE?!

4. Got annoyed

I saw Toy Story 4 and blubbed. I always blub at films. Oh and I started series two of Mindhunter, a grisly serial killer drama where you don't really see the grisly bits. It's such a good programme, although it fell for a well-worn trope. In one scene, like so many other programmes, they dubbed feedback over people talking talk into microphones. This doesn't happen unless sound is being mismanaged or it's an actual soundcheck. Stop doing it, programme makers! *squeeeals*

5. Got listenin'

I've been listening to things. Every other day on my Twitter account, I post a "you should be listening to" recommendation, old or new or somewhere inbetween. I've recently plugged Antwood, D-Shake, Underworld, Daphni and Jamie xx. To hear my nuggets of audio wisdom. follow me on the tweets.

Who do I hate more? Morrissey or Axl?

Regular sufferers of this blog know I like to have a public enemy number one: a Moriarty to my Jeremy Brett; a Joker to my Adam West; a seven evil exes to my Michael Cera.

Things have been plain sailing so far, whether I'm comparing Sean Paul to a malfunctioning karaoke machine, calling Chromeo faux-retro Prince-wannabe lifeless post-Mika pap, or poking Prince, or calling James Blunt a Milli Vanilli imposter or suggesting James Blunt be castrated or wishing James Blunt be hit by cluster bombs calling James Blunt the son of a dead cat and another dead cat or blaming the Beatles for James Blunt or saying Bono is more boring than James Blunt or comparing James Blunt to a vagina and Alexandra Burke.

But now I am torn between two new enemies: Morrissey calling a fifth of the world a subspecies or Guns N Roses' Axl Rose treating his fans like crap in Dublin.

One one hand, Mozza's flirtation with racism is a well-trodden groove he should have stepped out of more quickly. On the other hand, Rose is demonstrating a basic failure to do his job: turn up on stage and sing.

First, the flower-fondling fop. Morrissey seems to think himself untouchable, ignoring the press and replying to everything everyone ever says to him with a swooned "well, aren't we all?" He once draped himself in a flag and the liberal media has drawn daggers against him ever since. It was okay, however, for Geri Halliwell to dress in the same flag a few years later because, I s'ppose, she was well fit and that.

It's hard to know whether Simon Armitage took his quote out of context in the recent Grauniad article, but Mozza certainly seems to treat issues of nationalism with a clunk-handed carelessness that compromises his integrity and makes it difficult for his fans to love him. I think history will judge Morrissey fairly though: in the words of Armitage's poem Poem:

Here's how they rated him when they looked back:
sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.

And now to the cat-squeezed voice and the kilt and the hair. Axl Rose is in such a stratosphere of rock glory, he will have no idea what it's like to live on beans and dust for a year to save up enough money for a gig. He disappeared for forty days and forty nights before turning in an album called Chinese Democracy (are you reading, Morrissey?) which sounded turgid and confused and, even worse, boring.

Whatever went wrong with the Guns N Roses shows, who didn't wake up who and who was supposed to play until when, Rose's protestations at the organisation of the Reading and Leeds festival seemed shallow in the light of the later shambles in Dublin. But when you're in awe of bands like this, don't you expect a bit of diva nonsense, for them to over-use the illusion of the emperor's new clothes?

Both artists are living off former glories - try and find any of their fans that *don't* like their older work - and the bolt-gun of retirement hangs heavily over the old heffers. At least the Smiths frontman can still turn in a tune or two. Which brings me to my conclusion.

Axl Rose makes substandard music and presents it by snoozing in a hammock made out of his massively big head's bandana instead of hitting the stage on time. Although Morrissey can't match his past brilliance, Davyhulme's most famous quiff knows how to perform, how to write a song and how to do his flipping job.

If, instead of writing this blog, I just did a giant poo on your computer screen, although I'd be improving the quality of your user experience, I wouldn't be fulfulling the most basic element of my job description: tapping on my keyboard while hoovering a quart of Talisker then smashing 'Publish' with my forehead.

If Axl Rose can't do what he's meant to do, then he's nothing more than the anorexic bastard child of Mick Hucknall and Mickey Rourke squealing like a cat kazoo at a barrage of drunkenly-hurled bottles of piss.

Yes, Morrissey, shut up, please, just shut up, but Axl is my new public enemy number one and James Blunt can rest easy.

Gorgeous Pauls

There has been a lot of Paul hate on this blog recently, what with my Awful Pauls and my Boring Pauls. Time for some sweet Paul lovin'. Hey, Paul, where's it at?

Paul Hardcastle

The original keyboard wizard (yeah, sorry Adamski) and a man that not only gifted us the stuttering Vietnam classic 19, but he also provided something for Bruno Brooks to waffle over when he wrote The Wizard. My love for Paul Hardcastle is tempered by his tragic descent later in life into an addiction to smooth jazz. Oh and his manager Simon Fuller later gave us the Spice Girls and Pop Idol. Wait. Paul Hardcastle BAD not good. Screw you, Hardcastle, you n-n-n-n-tossbag.

Les Paul

It's easy to slap the sticky Guitar Inventor label onto this man, but he also gave us a bucketful of production techniques including overdubbing, phasing and an unstoppable flood of country and western music. One of his first guitar creations was called The Log, probably after a strenuous session in the toilet, and-- oh, who am I kidding, guitars suck. I want to him because he beat all the odds (being called Les) to become a legend (a famous Les), but I can't. I just can't.

Paul Hartnoll

He's the one out of Orbital who looked like a robot slightly less than the other one out of Orbital. He captured the anti-poll tax zeitgeist, he brought in a little mining chic by using headlamps, and he popularised the dance music album. Most importantly, he's in my favouritest band ever and has more talent in his left nostril hairs than I have in my entire body. And, yes, you've guessed it, for that very reason, I hate him. I want to stick his face into a blender, stick that blender into a crusher, then stick that crusher into Ann Widdecombe's gob.

Pauls Oakenfold and van Dyk

A double Paul on account of there being two in a similar field of dance music. Paul Oakenfold was once the producer-du-jour, smearing his particularly crunchy version of power trance over clubbers everywhere (and later reality TV droids). The trance music peddled by Paul van Dyk, meanwhile, made him into the biggest DJ in the world despite having a head shaped like a comma. Between them, these two men pumped their manly way into my affections as I sweated and gurned in darkened rooms while I-- (wait, this has gone way off course. Move on to the the next one. - ed)

Paul Potts

I watched this porn video once-- (that's enough. Sniiiip! - ed)

More Pauls

Well, I think that went well. I hope my effusion of love and peace for Pauls will drizzle throughout the blogosphere until it's all slightly damp and unusable. If you are called Paul, don't be discouraged. In fact, do. Chop your arms off so you can't make music, it's the least this world deserves.

See what you think of my Boring Pauls and my Awful Pauls too.

Brits 2010: a prejudiced review from someone who doesn't give a damn

I don't need to tell you, dear reader, that the Brit Awards are the saggy scrotum of the music industry needlessly scratched once a year by panting, sweat-sodden record industry moguls.

Did you cry at the telly screen wondering what had happened to music? You missed the point: it has no relevance to music of any kind. That's a bit like looking at a cat going to the toilet and wondering which Shakespeare play is the funniest.

Last year, I ran a live tweet of the Brits. No such fun this year, I'm afraid, but close observers of this blog will already know what I think of this year's winners.

(Yes, this post is just an excuse to link to other bits of my blog, but there is some fun readings to be had if you get clicky. Here goes... )

Forced castration

Lady Gaga swept up the trophy cabinet in the 2010 Brit awards. I did once recommend that James Blunt become more like Lady Gaga with the help of forced castration using nose hair clippers. She's got a good turn in pop pap, but really, she's a load of old nonsense. I do detect, however, begrudging respect from when I live-blogged the Christmas Number One.

JLS inexplicably won a gong or two. There were literally a billion better singles these past 12 months, although their award-winning track Beat Again did give me something to rake over on this very blog last month ("I need love CPR," isn't the best advice, I mused.) JLS? Really?

Florence And The Machine scooped the best album prize for Lungs, which I don't mind too much despite me claiming last month that "The Source are probably rolling in their grave at her treatment of You Got The Love." In fact, I do mind. I do mind very much. If you own her album, you are crusty and merely six inches from death by old age.

And Kasabian didn't do too badly from the Brits either. Kasabian are a bit like that friend you knew from school who's turned into a bit of a knob but you're still friends and anyway he keeps poking you on Facebook. I like to think my Kasabian tip for the 2009 Mercury actually applied to the 2010 Brits instead.

Jizzle Zizzle

Jay Z has had 99 awards and now the 2010 Brits are one too. I want to slag off the Jizzle Zizzle, but I can't. I loved The Grey Album and I've thrown him at least a couple of bones on this blog before (defending him against Radio 4 in 2006 and the wonderful Jay Z bar chart in 2007). Jay, if you ever fancy writing a guest post on this blog, I'm willing to talk money.

I'm also quite a fan of Dizzee Rascal, the cheeky-faced hip hop Tigger who somehow straddles blantant commercialism and the urban underground without breaking a sweat. As far as this blog goes, I fell in love with Dizzeee Raaaaarskuw's name, I slagged off his Band Aid appearance, I compared Bonkers to Ace Of Bass, and I wanted to work with him because he sounded like Scooby Doo.

Where the Brits really lost their way, of course, was when they declared that (What's The Story) Morning Glory was the best album of the past 30 years. Morning Glory is not even in the top 200. Peter Kay's now infamous comment was right (google it) - I've said before that Liam Noel Gallagher's gob needs plugging.

Net of narkiness

And this is where my crass self-promoting linkage almost ends. Sadly for this blog, there are two winners who have warranted many a mention but somehow seem to have escaped my net of narkiness.

I'm amazed that Lily Bloody Allen has only had a couple of mentions on this website (once in an end-of-year review called Knobs, Cocks and Boils, and a quick namecheck in my Number One Album Chart Death Rant). I'd like to go officially on record to say that if clever lyrics were all that it needed, then people would have liked the Smiths. Oh... wait... I need to formulate a better argument, there.

And the Spice Girls, gawd bless their union-flagged PVC trousers, have never had even the slightest mention on Fat Roland On Electronica, until now. I can't think why.

So, there it is. Cry all you want, cringe to your heart's desire, but when you've already made up your mind about certain artists, as I most evidently have,  the Brits aren't worth the record company PR clause they're written in.

Next year: Flying Lotus sweeps the board at the Brits and I completely change my tone.