Because / a melon / only slightly: birthday thoughts

Another birthday is crushed underfoot by the hippo of time, so it seems appropriate to look back over the last 12 months and ask myself some important questions:

- Why?
- What with?
- Did it hurt?

Among the many highlights of the past year was the moment I was crowned Miss Manchester. It all seems a blur, but I do remember being hoisted through the city streets on palm leaves, feathers and heavy-duty scaffolding. The sash matched my varicose veins.

In December, I trapped all of Manchester's police in the sewers and injected explosives into all the concrete. I then imploded our American football stadium before making a man in a bat costume climb up a bit of a wall.

The other week, I gave up my Fat Roland moniker and became Thin Malcolm for a day. This time was largely spent flat on my face weeping furiously into the threadbare weave of my carpet. I then went on Jeremy Kyle and fought myself for custody of myself. Good times, good times.

Birthdays are about presents, so here are two things. Firstly, a Hounds Of Hulme track I recorded today (see below). It's a bit rough-and-ready, relying too much on preset instruments, but I like it. The energy from the track largely rose from watching the awful Olympic closing ceremony on iPlayer. In the words of Twitter's ever-reliable funny bloke Vivmondo, "I suppose we'll simply never know why David Bowie turned down the opportunity to appear alongside Ed Sheeran and a tape of Kate Bush."

Then after the music, why not click here for a series of inspiration quotes I bombarded by Facebook friends with over the weekend. I hope you too will find them inspiring enough to find your place on the carpet, that sweet spot in the dust and the fluff and the skin.

It's just a bit of a wall. I don't see what all the fuss was.



Further Fats: Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool (my birthday three years ago)

Snoop left his old name lion about somewhere

Kanye Leopard.

LL Cool Jaguar.

Busta Panther.

Notorious BIG (CAT).

Ghostface Puma.

This is the world in two years time.  Snoop Doggity-Dogg, best known for his hits My Name Is Snoop Dogg, Snoop Dogg Is My Name and Drop It Like It's Snoop Dogg Yes That's My Shizzling Name, has changed his name to Snoop Lion.

This is the biggest name change in popular music since the Morning Benders toured the UK to gales of laughter. Snoop Puddytat probably phoned Prince to ask for advice, although all he'd get is crackles on the line and sound of the paisley berk drawing squiggles on his face in crayon.

I like cats. Scratchy, Simon's Cat, Snarf, Stimpy, they're all great. But other than Orbital's talking ones, I'm not sure I want them in my music. 'Caterwaul's a word for a reason, you know. Before others start changing their names, I hope they paws for thought. Paws. Pause. Hello? Is this microphone on?

And it's the weird transition. Eek-a-Mouse wouldn't change his name to Eek-a-Buffalo, and neither would a dog turn into a lion. If they did, the local park would get much more interesting very quickly. And not in a good way.

Snoop's real name is Calvin. He's even got that wrong. That was the boy; Hobbes was the lion.

Still, he's working with Major 'Diplo' Lazer, the chap behind MIA's ear-busting Paper Planes who describes his own music as Hare Rama James Bond Ethiopian lumberjack. And as long as Snoop Liony Lionn doesn't start rhyming his name with "iron" and "zion" (why, Bob, why?!), we should be okay.

KRS-Ocelot.

No, it doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Further Fats: Homoerotica *and* analogue ambience: my levels of internet presence (in which I plug a website that has since, wisely, changed its name).

Mmm Underworld, the world loves you

The Olympic opening ceremony bandwagon has not only bolted, it has sprouted jet engines and shot off to the dark side of the moon. But I have to talk about it for one reason and one reason alone. 

Lemon Interupt.

This was a little-known house music act that shared a label with Terry Farley and Ashley Beedle in the early 1990s. The playful repeating harmonica on Big Mouth was a style later appropriated by the likes of The Grid and, yeesh, the Rednex.

More importantly, they were better known as Underworld, whose music lent so much energy to the rising chimneys and flaming flutes of Friday night's telly.

Underworld expressed the 90's fractured postmodernism better than Zoo TV or grunge, with Edward Lear-style blethering spilling out of their music and, through Tomato, their design aesthetic.

Their third album dubnobasswithmyheadman gave us the bold epics Mmm Skyscraper I Love You, with its visions of Elvis, fat Jesus and whipped cream, and Dark & Long which you heard in the opening ceremony. Yes, I said third album. Their first two were synth pop efforts for Sire and are for purists only.

By the time they were shouting "lager, lager" - actually not one of their strongest tracks - many dance-heads could claim Underworld as part of their musical DNA. As part of their emotional DNA. We had the MTV-baiting slo-mo of Push Upstairs, their immense anthem Rez, and soundtracks for Anthony Minghella, Danny Boyle and the Royal National Theatre.

Given all this history, when I tuned into BBC iPlayer with "I AM CYNICAL" already written in vinegar on my computer screen, I wasn't quite expecting the Underworld feast that followed. Always Loved A Film, Moon In Water, Dirty Epic, Crocodile... even their immense pieces And I Will Kiss and Caliban's Dream nicked bits from other Underworld tracks. That lead to the flame being lit with a synth line ripped from Two Months Off.

It was unbelievable. Let's say your favourite food is toast, but no-one else knows about toast so it feels like your little secret. You know that by applying heat to bread, it goes brown and crunchy, but you want everyone else just to carry on enjoying their floppy, disappointing room-temperature Tesco's finest loaves. Then after 20 years of loving toast and secretly meeting other people that like toast, the moon has suddenly become a grill and every building on earth has been replaced by a perfectly smoking slice of Hovis. The population is amazed as they dance through the streets with giant butter knives shouting "toast! toast! toast! we like it the most! most! most!". Children skip through fountains of crispy crumbs before scuttling off to dark alleyways to sniff marmalade. Toast is the thing. Uneaten sandwiches spill out of overflowing bins, landfill sites double in height with slices of gravy-soaked bread, and although the white / brown / wholemeal / Mighty White war breaks out in the Middle East, the future is toast. The world is enjoying your little secret.

I agree that the Olympic opening ceremony was a worthless diatribe of propaganda for evil things like the NHS, multiculturalism, pop music, lesbians, industry, sheep and people dancing in top hats. How can we not hate all of those things? But everyone who watched it got a lesson in Underworld. And, for that matter, their collaborator High Contrast.

In 40 years time, one of the surviving members of Underworld, all wrinkles and no reputation, will be dragged on stage at royal jubilees and sports ceremonies to perform out-of-tune versions of fading classics. While the other one narrates Thomas the Tank Engine. Meanwhile, I dedicate this 650th blog post to one of my favourite bands come good. 650 is the rate at which Underworld resonate. It's measured in herts or gammas or--

LEMON INTERUPT.

Oh very funny. We've got the Rednex for the closing ceremony, right?

Further Fats: Chosen Words - U is for Underworld

Hounds Of Hulme: T_CHN_L_GY preview

They say music journalists are failed musicians, which suggests releasing an album may not be not such a good idea.

Then again, 50 'Thirty One Pounds And Eighty Six Pence At Current Exchange Rates' Cent said "I love you like a fat kid loves cake" which suggests to me all music journalists are failed cakes and I should go ahead and stick an album in the oven anyway.

On Friday August 3, the Hounds Of Hulme will release T_CHN_L_GY, which is months of me fiddling about with a very limited range of recording gear with an imaginary horse at my side. (See the list of band members on the site.) What's more, it will be utterly free to download or stream.

Here, dear reader, is a quick guide to what's on it. Hey, it's what the NME would do.

1 Strung Out - a bunch of psychotic people spiral aimlessly over music you may recognise from my 50 Shades Of Grey parody A Facial Sonata.

2 Reverse The Line - a steady builder of techno scrumminess with slightly sinister overtones.

3 FM Drop - an acid house tribute to old radio frequencies.

4 Don't Ask Me - sample-drenched old-school retro work-out.

5 Decade - de-tuned rave attack with choppy synths and a bleepy lead.

6 Acid Minors - a sweet acid-pop track with a deliberately formulaic pop structure.

7 Unsure - lyrics break apart over busy house music while Blurry Squirrel's harmonica meets a mysterious vocalist called Johnny Mobius

8 Hurtlovedandlost - a "diode-distressing" remix of No Ceremony's Hurtlove.

9 Rise of the Dead Robots - a seven-minute paeon to the machines, a 4/4 juggernaut (or at least, a well-serviced transit van).

10 Voiceinstruktion - short and sweet techno pop imploring you for a rewind. No retro stone is unturned.

11 Siren - simple arpeggios. Don't forget to take some cocktail-stick cheese and pineapple on your way out.

Tick tick tick tick bleep

Electronic is out today. That means it's time to rattle the windows of WHSmith until they let you slither across their floor to drool on their magazines.

The above photo shows my column header in all its papery glory. The inset photograph on the right, with the tick, shows the magazine in the largest WHSmith in Manchester. The other photo, with the cross, shows the magazine my local newsagent mistakenly ordered in. It's about circuitry.

Please buy the magazine about circuitry. I feel awfully bad they've bought it in. Two copies and all. I would spend my money but the last time I connected a circuit board, Pluto downgraded from being a planet. If I tried again, the moon could become a pebble and all the werewolves will die.

Oh and you should buy Electronic mag too, I suppose. Heh. I was having a leaf through today and it's so refreshing to have a magazine that seems to be aimed at me and my bleepy world, from Kraftwerk to Carl Craig, from A Guy Called Gerald to Underworld. Other dance music magazines seem so caught up in club culture, they can be a bit like having Zane Lowe implants in your brain.

I mean, Electronic even has a general section called 'Scanner' which sent a slightly irrelevant frisson of Spore-related nostalgia up my spine tubes. Seriously, if your newsagent hasn't got this magazine in, ask them for it.

Last month an author. This week a columnist. Next week, I release an album. Tick, tick, tick - and only the occasional cross.

Further Fats: Hounds Of Hulme website

Fat Roland Bangs On... as an Electronic columnist

Music was invented in 1942 when Aphex Twin made didgeridoos out of energy and all the other musicians looked blank as they continued hitting rocks with sticks.

Since then, Yazz got to number one and therefore created an inherent song title irony at the highest position in the charts, Men At Work invented the Village People, and Leonard Cohen won the X Factor.

This is the kind of keen music knowledge that has won me a new gig: I am now a columnist.

'Columnist' sounds like a put-down for people who worship pillars, but for those people too modern to appreciate opinion pieces beyond Kim Kardashian telling Twitter that she's watching herself on telly, a columnist is someone who puts words in a publication for people to read. Like Melanie Phillips or Matthew Parris or Marjorie Proops or anyone with the initials MP.

The magazine twisted enough to publish my rants is the all-new Electronic, a publication for bleepy music fans by the kings of print Future Publishing. The first edition (buy it here) puts Underworld, Human League and the whole of Detroit techno under the spotlight... and it also has my column, called Fat Roland Bangs On.

I am so excited about this, I am dribbling from every orifice. I've bought Future publications for years - in fact, I'm tapping these very keys just yards from dozens of back issues of Future Music. Which may be handy for mopping if my excitement gets too much. Electronic is less techy: no dull gear reviews, just lots of passion about great bands.

What am I banging on about in my debut Bangs On? You'll have to buy the mag when it comes out on July 20. Like the Facebook page for more. Those with a keen eye may spot my trails of wordsludge elsewhere in the magazine... but I'll leave you to figure that out for yourself.

Here's to issue one of Electronic! Bleeps away!

Further Fats: Best electronica of 2011

Thirteen things I should have blogged about in June but didn't

The Stone Roses reunion and how I was convinced it would never happen.

Pendulum have split. Skrillex has been riffing on Miles Davis with The Doors. Is Justin Biebpipe now the future of dirty-bass dubstep?

How best to avoid tax if you're a pop star - without having to pay those stiff-shirted accountants. Mattresses are go!

Are Muse still alive? Yes, the news says they are: look, there they are competing with Usain Bolt in the Olympics. But are they really, or are they zombies as we all suspected?

Now they are no more, how to make your own Swedish House Mafia track using the contents of your dishwasher and a hammer.

The latest Squarepusher (pictured) album.

Radio 1 playing hip hop in Hackney. Whatever next? Radio 4 having some actual comedy? Humus not having all that extra crap like peppers in? JEEZ.

Maroon 5 finally get a UK number one single after eight years of trying. Why *this* is the day that music died.

Pop is dead. CDs are dead. Rock is dead. Noise is dead. Dead is dead. This sentence is dead.

Does 'bon' really mean 'good'? Really? I ask Bon Jovi, Bon Iver, Simon Le Bon, Bono and Boney M. And when I say "ask", I mean "leave rambling, drunken messages on the answerphones of".

The latest Clark (not pictured) album.

Why I should have gone to see NKOTBSB and how I think they should have got together with PSB and LMFAO and played YMCA.

A review of the UK number one singles so far this year a.k.a. me weeping into the tortured carcass of a buffalo looking for meaning in a once-great culture and only finding deflating stomach gas.

A whirlwind of collaboration: the 3hundredand65 story tweets

I've been turned into art. I am Damien Hirst's pickled shark. I am Damien Hirst's bling skull. I am Damien Hirst's Last Supper (he may not have done that one).

There's a thing called 3Hundredand65 where an illustrated story is told in a year's worth of tweets. We all get to do a day: in my case, I tweeted fifty days in where I stripped the protagonist of his clothes and covered him in tea. No doubt the 364 other authors may take the story in a different direction.

And what authors. My comrades-in-365dom include Chris Addison, Ian Rankin, Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey, Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Ross, Neil Gaiman, Tim Burgess, Clint Boon, and many many more. Oh and plenty of unknowns like me too.

I found it a strange experience because I'm very picky about my writing and who I work with. So for example, in my tweet I killed off a whirlwind that was annoying me only to have a whirlwind return in today's tweet. And you find yourself compromising with other people's writing styles... well, not compromising... collaborating.

Having your tweet turned into an illustration by the immensely talented Dave Kirkwood (an abstract of which is included in the above picture) is another level of powerlessness you get with true collaboration. Sometimes that leads to tweeters trying to lead the illustrator on with their tweets - as I did. 'I'd like this, this and this in my illustration, please!'. This whole project is fun, liberating and surprising.

If all that wasn't enough, you can now find me on 'Collaborate', a limited edition print featuring all the authors from the first three months of the project. My name is listed, and if you're wondering which is my speech bubble, it's the good looking one. There'll be a meet-up in a Manchester pub next weekend too, where no doubt the print will be on sale. (Edit: here's the poster about that.)

3hundredand65 is raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust, who provide specialist services to young people diagnosed with cancer. The project is all about raising a profile, so if you're vaguely in the orbit of the planet "celebrity" and you haven't signed up yet, get in contact with 3hundredand65 and become one of the tweeters.

And yes, that includes celebrity modern artists and their chopped-up fishes.


Further Fats: We Were Spending Precious Time