Don’t Hug me I’m Scared [by This Is It Collective]
Disco Inferno: An oral history of the British experimental rock act's remarkable Five EPs
The most underrated band of an entire generation get a five-page article in Pitchfork - that must be almost unheard of, surely? - written by Ned Raggett, who has championed Disco Inferno for as long as I can remember (and selflessly distributed the CD-Rs of the long-deleted five EPS he writes about here, for a decade or so, before they finally received an official re-release). More than just about how they recorded their beautiful and still so revolutionary sample-based music, the thoughts of the three members - especially singer and lyricist Ian Crause - reveal just how political the band were, too. Utterly essential.
“ Without a shadow of doubt Trafalgar Square has to be one of the most crap urban public spaces in the world. The fact that massed divisions of tourists feel compelled to ritually promenade across its pigeon-shat-upon York stone and head-banging granite is perverse in the extreme, because it’s not so much a place to hang out as somewhere you feel constantly in danger of being hung for treason, such is the discourse of power enshrined in its leonine and general-studded plinths and its admiral-spiked column.”
Pink Hat, Cardiff Wales UK, by Maciej Dakowicz - from a fantastically photographed series on Flickr called Cardiff After Dark, which shows various scenes in a typical city centre on weekend nights. It successfully reminded me why I really can’t get excited about going ‘out on the town’ on a Saturday evening.
Cardiff Policewomen, by Maciej Dakowicz - from a fantastically photographed series on Flickr called Cardiff After Dark, which shows various scenes in a typical city centre on weekend nights. It successfully reminded me why I really can’t get excited about going ‘out on the town’ on a Saturday evening.
Soviet ‘Peace with the USA’ posters, 1980s
Perhaps it was a deliberate but subtle snub - it seems that to celebrate ‘peace with the USA’, the Russians produced childlike, almost amateurish, poster art; a stark contrast to the famed propaganda posters of the Soviet era.
Breton: Edward the Confessor - Like many bands who achieve a critical buzz these days, this sounds like it has probably been cribbing a few notes from electronic music circa 1983/84. Of course, as somebody who owned a Casio keyboard in 1983/84, and wasted many hours after school trying (and failing) to replicate their synthesizer sounds, I regard this as no bad thing.
It’ll always be unfortunate for David Bowie (like he cares) that there are many people, like me, who will continue to prefer the period when he was at his most drug-addled and addicted. This is one of my absolute favourite Bowie songs, but the sad and shocking video absolutely makes it. Bowie, possibly at his lowest, filmed against a completely stark white backdrop. You don’t actually need a “hey kids, don’t do drugs” campaign - just make them watch this and then compare it to footage of a healthy Bowie. It’s all here - deathly pallor, the “where the hell am I?” distant gaze, the vague smiles to himself about a joke only he understands, and worst of all, a face that’s withered and shrunken so much that he appears to have temporarily developed a Gallagher-style monobrow. Happy birthday, Dame Dave - I just hope he hasn’t settled into too quite a retirement watching old episodes of BBC sitcoms downloaded from Bittorrent.
Murdoch and Twitter, sitting in a tree, t-w-e-e-t-i-n-g
In short, I think Rupert Murdoch is buying Twitter. And I am never* wrong.
*=occasionally, verging on often, within spitting distance of always.
Radio 4 Today guest editor Stewart Lee wasn’t keen to suggest a guest for the programme’s traditional Thought for the Day slot. Instead, he offered an Alternative Thought for the Day from writer Alan Moore.
![Eric Gay, An area destroyed by wildfire surrounds a water tower in Bastrop, Texas, Sept. 7, 2011 [via snowce]](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx0q3pkWhM1qz9b3ko1_500.jpg)
Eric Gay, An area destroyed by wildfire surrounds a water tower in Bastrop, Texas, Sept. 7, 2011 [via snowce]
![Grand Central, New Year’s Eve 1969 [via nevver]](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx2zoyo0Xr1qz6f9yo1_500.jpg)
