Pop Pourri: have a go at these pop star anagrams

If a pop star anagram knocked on your door, you'd be horrified. Peter Andre's face, 5 Seconds Of Summers' hair, Crazy Frog's body. No thanks.

However, if you saw a pop star anagram on Twitter, you would be delighted. At least, I hope that's what happened when I foisted a game called Pop Pourri on my Twitter followers this afternoon.

Why don't you have a go too? Here are five pop star anagrams to solve. They are all acts that had a song in the UK top 40 singles chart at Halloween 1989. The first, third and last are solo artists, and the other two are groups. The number of letters of the acts' name is in brackets.

Good luck, and no cheating. I'll post the answers as a comment on this blog post in the next couple of hours.

DECLINE AIR BALLS (7, 8)

ETHICAL TORY? I'D SUCKLE IT (9, 6, 3, 3)

JOLLY BILE (5, 4)

NIX A NOB VIGIL (6, 2, 1, 3)

STIFLE A DIN, LASS (4, 10)

Further Fats: Ardently foul, wet flies: do my angry anagrams, you fart-hole (2010)

Further Fats: 5 great new dance hits from January 1989 (2019)

This is the best album of the decade, you b*stards

I got asked a difficult question the other day. The question was: what was your favourite album of the past decade. It's a humdinger, right?

It's probably the most vexing question ever to be asked of a member of the public. Worse than Brexit, worse than gold dress or blue dress, worse than Gareth Gates versus Will Young.

The people asking were Picky B*stards, a name I've had to censor so my blog doesn't fall foul of swear filters. I have to be honest: a few brain cogs fell out. Choosing the best album in a ten-year period is like choosing which puppy to shove into a blender, but in a good way. That said, when the answer came, it came easily. It hit me like a bl*ning fl*pd*bble.

In fact, there are few other albums so closely woven into my life over the past few years than the album I've chosen. It's Kiasmos by Kiasmos (pictured), a work I once rated as the third best album of 2014 but have now very much promoted it to legendary status inside my own noggin.

Read more about my choice of Kiasmos among the Picky Bs list here.

Further Fats: The 5 best electronic music tracks of the decade so far (2017)

Amma tell you about Kanye West because I am the greatest

Kanye West banned his kid from wearing makeup. Kanye and Kim have another spat. Kanye West disses Dancing With the Stars. The headlines are 120% Kanye West right now.

It's hard to avoid him. According to the wisdom of West, he's either the greatest or God's vessel or bigger than PJ & Duncan. Kanye's simply following in the size 92 boots of boastful rappers, a path well trodden by Public Enemy and Method Man and the like. It's all standard stuff.

Although perhaps Chuck D had more of a purpose: blazing a trail to empower people of colour, speaking truth to authority and building an empire along the way. With Kanye it somehow seems so much more capitalist, more commercial and perhaps more empty.

It does mean, though, it's difficult to listen to new Kanye material without sensing the eccentric Trump-ian ego behind the work. And that's a shame because I missed out on much of his earlier material, when he was proper good. When College Dropout appeared in the mid-noughties, I'd been through my hip-hop phase. And what a phase. Vanilla Ice, Snap, John Barnes.

Maybe I could learn something from Mr West. I should be more boastful, because fake confidence breeds real confidence. Yeah. I'm going to do it. Here it comes. Here comes the ego. Ready?

Amma let me finish, but y'all Fat Roland is the best. Fats is the dopest dope. More fly than the other guy. Fat Roland knows 20 digits of pi by heart. Fats, er, is, um, good, I think.

Jeez, I'm exhausted. How does he keep it up? Maybe he is the greatest. Maybe he was right about Dancing With The Stars. Maybe 120% is about right.

Further Fats: Glastonbury's got 99 bands, and Jay Z should be one of them (2008)

Further Fats: World Book Day: music books I have read and should have read (2019)

I lost my Aphex Twinginity

I think I've just popped a cherry. Not an actual cherry. A techno cherry. I've popped a techno cherry.

I went to see Aphex Twin. Despite me lapping up his oozing bleeps since his early days, it just struck me that I don't think I'd ever seen him live before. Call myself a fan? Pfffrt.

Maybe he never did that many live dates. Maybe I was too scared to go - the teddy bears! the teddy bears! Or more likely, maybe I was lazy. I also missed out on Underworld back in ye olden days.

I'm probably going to write about the Aphex Twin gig properly at some point. In short: he did 90 minutes and he was ace and the support acts were ace and everything was ace. For now here are some tweets I did on Twitter.

I'm at @WHP_Mcr enjoying an excellent night of Aphex Twin songs. Here are some photos. pic.twitter.com/MttEenkbVp

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) September 21, 2019

Walking from the 'little' space to the actually very big space at @WHP_Mcr Mayfield. pic.twitter.com/wZ8gkpX2qu

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) September 21, 2019

Oh OKAY THEN, have a blast of Aphex Twin at @WHP_Mcr. This was one his more ethereal moments. #AphexTwin #Manchester pic.twitter.com/fkd2Ttxktc

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) September 22, 2019

Five days ago yet my brain's still here. pic.twitter.com/IkoRYT0cxV

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) September 25, 2019

Happy 909 day

Happy 909 day, everyone. Here's a pair of hands singing cutely over some Roland TR-909 rhythms.



And if that's not enough, here's a video of someone jamming on the 909, posted earlier today.



What do you mean you want more? Oh alright then. Here's Daft Punk's 1998 single Revolution 909, which missed out on the top 40 in the week Brimful Of Asha made its debut at the top of the charts. Good track, but it's no Revolution 909.



Photo: VintageSynth.com

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.

An acid-tweaking return for 808 State

One of this summer’s bestest things is the return of 808 State.

You might know 808 State from that saxophone thing they did back in the olden days. They also helped define modern techno through the rise of Detroit house and the Hacienda. Wikipedia also says 808's Graham Massey was a member of the Barbie Girl Danish pop band Aqua, but I’m pretty sure they’re linking to the wrong Aqua there.

The band’s comeback album is Transmission Suite - their first for seventeen years. In the past, they’ve blurted out quite dense techno, but this new material feels looser. It’s acid-tweakin’ paranoid rave gubbins by grizzled Mancunians who get drug flashbacks when taking their Rennie’s. Sometimes old ravers slow down, but there’s plenty of improvisational energy in this new material.

They recorded it at the old Granada studios in Manchester, formerly home to TV broadcasts like Coronation Street, World In Action and, er, The Chase. The nicest thing is you can feel Manchester’s club history running through Transmission Suite like day-glo varicose veins: it’s giving me flashbacks of gigs at the Boardwalk and Sankeys Soap.

There's also a strong feeling of paranoia in their new work - very appropriate for our current times, I think. Have a nosey at their moody video for Tokyo Tokyo and you'll see what I mean.



Further Fats: RIP Tony Wilson aka "Mr Manchester" 33AD to 2007AD inclusive (2007)

Further Fats: How do you solve a problem like Madchester (and Fac251)? (2010)

I went into a black hole and all you got was this blog post about the Edinburgh Fringe

It's more than a week since I returned from the Edinburgh Fringe. A week since I stopped pouring money into the huge financial black hole that is Edinburgh economies. I've not checked my bank balance yet. I daren't.

And actually, I don't have to. I can ignore it. If you have a fridge full of spiders, you don't have to open the fridge to know they're still there. In this metaphor, the fridge is my online banking account and the spiders are my meagre funds and the person not opening / logging into the white goods / website is me.

Still with me? Good. On the positive side, my energy levels are alright. I'm not as fashed and bashed post-Fringe as in previous years. I came into this year's festival in better creative shape: a show what was written proper, and a pretty good idea of how to keep an audience laughing for an hour.

I'm currently enjoying the chance to slow down. A bit of self care. Chilling to Spotify's recommendations - the app is currently playing me Speedy J and John Beltram and Req and some insipid jungle-lite nonsense I just thank-u-nexted harder than an Ariana possessed.

I have a bunch of live appearances coming up, including a gig in a caravan. Come and buy a ticket for something if you fancy - click here. Put some money back into the system so people like me can chuck it at a Fringe show