Spoons! Marshmallows beware! and other conspiracy theories

Like marshamallows in hot chocolate, underground movements will always rise to the top. The long spoon of record company manipulation decides what stays on the bottom of the cup and what gets fed into our mouth, making us fat in the process.

My metaphor is convoluted and confusing, as is the situation involving the latest 'underground sensation' Sandi Thom.

>Propelling

Nizlopi and Arctic Monkeys famously used the web to propel their songs to the top of the charts, displacing the Pussycat Dolls and Shayne Ward respectively. Now we have Sandi, a KT Tunstall-type singer songwriter -- no, wait, don't go to sleep yet -- who turned heads by broadcasting her live performances on the world wide internetweb. She received tens of thousands of hits, prompting RCA to wake up and offer her a deal.

As a result, Thom hit the number one spot on Sunday with I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker, ending Gnarls Barkley's sixty two run on the top spot. So hurrah for the internet, again. Yes?

No.

>Quagmire

I hope she has sensible shoes, because she is wading through a quagmire of record company manipulation and scandal. Step aside Diana, JFK and Roswell, this is one conspiracy theory that will run and run until it kills us all or falls off a cliff.

How did she really come from nowhere when she's been hogging a publishing deal for at least a year? Where did she get the money for the bandwith needed for tens of thousands of people streaming videos on her site? Did she really strike a deal with a PR firm in 2005? Is this one big mashmallowy publicity stunt from RCA?

Or do we just like to knock our singer songwriters because we are fearful of another James Blunt taking over the world?

>Godawful

Number one is not the place to be. In the last year, that position has brought us Gnarls Barkley, the Arctics and Gorillaz. But it has also forced upon us Crazy Frog, James Blunt, Westlife, Shayne Ward, Chico and that godawful Leo Sayer travesty.

That's the good thing about electronica. It will probably never rise to the top, instead choosing to wallow at the bottom of the cup where all the sweetest chocolate can be found.

Edit: A week later, Thom was thumbed off the number one podium by Nelly Furtado. Sandi Thom is an anagram of O Damn Shit. Nelly Furtado is an anagram of Tory Flan Duel, Daily Fortune, Nude Art Folly, Fell Out Randy, Loft Underlay, Nod Tearfully, Our Daft Nelly, Fat Dour Nelly, Unfold Reality, and Fully A Rodent. I think the truth speaks for itself, yes yes?

Web updatingness: II on June 14

See my main website for the latest information on the next II on June 14. That's a week Wednesday or Wednesday week, depending on which side your grammar is buttered on.

My site features a famous man holding a ball. Lookee!

Exploding eyes - but is it art?

Every month or so, I make drinks and generally lend a hand at Nexus night cafe. It's a post-club coffee bar which will hail you a taxi and perk up your mind with cappuccinos, frappercrapperchinos, blue jeans and chinos, and whatever else the industrial sized coffee machine will spit out.

Nexus is now hosting its first art exhibition, and here (above) is the flyer for your eyes.

The opening night is June 14. I like to find plugs in the same way the people on the Poseidon didn't, so here is an obvious plug... After the exhibition's preview at 6pm on June 14, I will again be co-hosting II, a regular club night of unepic proportions. So come along to II, at Cord in the Northern Quarter, from 8pm on June 14. And go to the exhibition too.

It's so exciting, it makes my eyes explode.

Fall in to my web

Bloody hell, I've finally updated my website. Or at least, one page. See here, here see.

It's 3.30am and this is what I think of Da Vinci

A few years ago, I wrote a story about a character who had been locked inside a deep freezer as a child. I learnt that you cannot add depth, and therefore engender sympathy, in a protagonist by having them vaguely traumatised by an incident from years ago. Strong characters comprise many past moments, and they carry with them multiple fears and hopes. Shoe-horning in a bit of claustrophobia is just weak.

Welcome to The DaVinci Code movie, starring Tom Hanks who, yes, fell in a well as a child. He should have stayed there, because the 'Code is a calamitous mess of ill-thought theory and tedious plotting.

>Crimes

My Photoshop rendering of the Dan Brown cover should say it all, really (edit: this refers to an image now long deleted I'm afraid). The crimes of this film are manifold.

The dialogue is saggy; most scenes could have been half as long even before taking into account the golden rule of not drowning your character's lines in clumsy back-story exposition.

The acting is pisspoor in places, with the French letting the side down thanks to the usually excellent Audrey Tatou and Jean Reno.

The plot drives this movie at the expense of any character depth, which is a pain because that plot largely consists of bad puns such as "Alexander Pope" and "a pope". Oh look how they can get confused!

>Damn camera

Half way through the film I wondered when the damn camera would stop moving, obsessed as it was with tracking shots, pans, and authentic shakiness for running scenes, plane scenes, car scenes, any scenes really.

The film is let down in so many details too: in just one moment of many dropped directorial balls, we are treated to a moment of infuriating deux ex machina when doves just happen to distract a gunman at a crucial point. I would have had Tom Hanks see the doves and clap his hands in the echoey church, therefore providing himself with a way out rather than relying on a chance happening.

>Hellish

Sir Ian McKellen is the saving grace in this hellish film; his character is tortured, funny and fascinating and it is a pleasure to be engrossed in a McKellen masterclass. He is worth the ticket price alone, although Paul Bettany's ice-cold Silas provides more than a few moments of dark glee.

As someone who professes more than a passing interest in Christian teaching, it is not the theological mumbo jumbo I object to. It's such a weak film, the angels have nothing to fear. However, we are told in one of the numerous moments of exposition-through-dialogue that "God does not forgive murder". There is little hope, then, for the soul of Ron Howard, as he has taken a perfectly good art form and bludgeoned it to kingdom come.

Why use a long word when a diminutive one will do?

A gig is such a diminutive word for something that can turn your life on its head.

>Headlamps

I still get goosebumps at the memory of Orbital playing Tribal Gathering in 1995. NME had declared them the greatest band in the world. I was enthralled at the bobbing headlamps, the blue lazer wash during Halcyon (above video discovered a decade after this blog post!), the anti Criminal Justice Act junglist tunes and enjoying being at the front despite being next to an MDMA junkie who spent the whole set going "wow maaan!". Somehow, inside, I was never the same again.

>Chinwag

Plaid at Music Box a few years ago was also a great gig, although I wagged my chin with Fil instead of watching. Oh and others, so many others. God Speed You! Black Emperor at, I think, the sadly imploded Planet K. Daft Punk at Sankey's Soap before Sankey's Soap stopped being Sankey's Soap then they decided to turn it into Sankey's Soap again. Lamb at Manchester Ritz, some bloke with a Playstation at Futuresonic, 808 State at a post-bomb Re:Percussion, Autechre at the Hacienda, LTJ Bukem at the MMU...

Which is an extrodinary preamble to a sad admission. Take That the MEN Arena didn't change my life. It didn't get under my skin and make me want to wear the T-shirt. It won't make me cry for joy at a distant memory when I am old and lonely.
>Fried eggs

However, it was bloody brilliant. Where do I start? The ten foot hologram of Robbie Williams. Gorillaz' Dirty Harry backing Sure. The choreography and the amazing morphing stage. The waterfall with umbrellas. The waterfall without umbrellas (wet T-shirt contest anyone?). The twenty foot flames and 14,000 instantly tanned people. The "did you make shit-loads of cash?" nostalgia bit. Howard's creepy 'fried eggs' comment. The boy-band creator asking them to be ambiguous about their sexuality. The Beatles medley, not great but it made me appreciate the Beatles. The salsa, oh my gosh the salsa. I resisted the temptation to scream "I love you, Ronan!" during the quiet bits.
>Excuses
So yes, I have seen Take That. But remember - Tom Middleton of the gorgeous Global Communication cut his teeth on pop music, as did the Doves when they were Sub Sub. And where would the Prodigy be without one of the greatest pop tunes ever, and, um...

...I'll get my coat.

Bunnies waggle better than woof-dogs waggle

The 'Misadventures In Sound' posts dribbled into nothing during the second week of my fantastic Refresh FM presenting stint*. For this I apologise, but I was distracted by a rabbit.

The creature in question was hopping along the grass verge of a main road, nibbling whilst oblivious to the four-wheeled dangers hurtling past at 60 miles an hour. At first I thought it was a cute dog, but there is no such thing as a cute dog. And cute dogs don't waggle their fluffy white bums in quite the same way as bunnies.

>Foxes

Wild rabbits aren't too common near me, only wild foxes, so I decided I was dreaming. I started to take off all my clothes and fly, which I often do in dreams, but decided against it when the rabbit started following me. It needed help.

My help came in the guise of a family with numerous children milling around in a porch, and believe me, milling is a really hard thing to do in an enclosed space. I figured if the rabbit was local, then the children would know about it. Rabbits. Children. Children. Rabbits.

>Steve

The children did know - the rabbit was called Kevin or Steve or Bubbles or something. So I left them to catch the rabbit while I hurried on to my appointment with a beer.

I like to think I saved the life of that rabbit, although my parting glance didn't fill me with confidence: the two youngest children were tearing down the pavement after the startled bunny, all of them getting ever closer to the stream of traffic.

Anyhoo, that's no excuse for not continuing with my Refresh FM posts as this happened yesterday while Refresh finished broadcasting a fortnight ago. But it is my excuse so shut up.

>Waggles

On a bus a few moments after my bunny fun, I saw a piece of graffiti which said 'Chris waggles his bum at boys' and it occurred to me maybe they were writing about the rabbit. Which leads me to two conclusions: the rabbit wasn't called Kevin or Bubbles or something, and bunnies really do waggle their behinds in the cutest cutesy cute way. Aaaah!

Did I just hear screeching tyres?

*Far too many adjectives before 'stint'. Reminds me of a lazy BBC News 24 piece I heard this morning that blamed the destruction of homes on 'mudslide-causing heavy rainfall' which left me reeling for a few moments while I tried to figure out what had caused what to do what.

The Cure for Information Overload

Woosh, radio over then life goes woot and yay here I am again.

Sorry, I think I've been affected by The Cure for Information Overload: a curious asserton, if you ask me.

Edit: Wow, that's a small letter 'a'.