5 February 2013
guess my theory: none more gracile dept
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 1 Comment
31 January 2013
Lost Property Office: 2-3: A Dirty Great Crease
Hello Losers! Hmm, not sure if I should call regular listeners to The Lost Property Office Losers, you are all of course winners of a brand spanking new podcast. And this week I have one of the original Lollards for you, a man who by his own confession rarely loses, but rarely finds stuff either. And is always getting lost, and the approbation it might summon up. This intrepid Lost Properteer is of course Tim Hopkins.
In our little chat we broach upon parental disapproval, the Police Benevolent Fund, why anyone would need a calculator, the theory of mix CD’s, and we learn via book and flexi-disc how to play guitar. Unfortunately we do not have guitar in the studio to prove that we have completely learned how to play it. There is also some music which may or may not be by Michael Jackson, and as is often the way we seem to talk about the GOOD OLD DAYS. Oh and I sign not once but twice (Gordon Lightfoot and Miguel…) Download here, or on iTunes and enjoy.
lost property 2-3
Pete Baran in FT /Lost Property Podcast • 1 Comment
It Was Fifty Years Ago Today Sgt Loki Taught The Band To Play
Another in our series of posts on Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers comic.
The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” came out in August 1963, started building radio play, then hit the Billboard Top 10 by the end of September. A kid hearing it on the radio that month, walking around Ronnie Spector’s New York City with the drums in their head, passing a newsstand, might have pushed aside the Uncle Scrooge and Superman and found something different – one of those new mags Marvel Comics were putting out, and good value too. Three of their blocky, dynamic, aggressively weird heroes – plus two ant-size ones – against some guy in a horned helmet. “The Avengers”.
It’s a coincidence, maybe, that the song Noh-Varr dances to in space is a voice from the very time and place the idea of “Avengers” was born. But coincidences are there to have fun with. 1963 is the year Marvel Comics really started to motor. Going into that summer they were still just about bet-hedging, running romance and Western comics and squeezing new heroes into two-for-one books still called stuff like Tales To Astonish. By the end of the year they had Spider-Man, they had the Avengers, they had a universe taking some kind of shape, and maybe – maybe – they had the first inkling that their comics weren’t being bought by kids. They’d broken through into teens, and college-age readers. Their comics were part of something far vaster, something pop.
more »
Tom in FT • 13 Comments
2001 ARCHIVE The Usual Excuses
The Usual Excuses
Bowery Electric’s “Freedom Fighter” is bewitching and worrying, and not just because it was made by a band I’d put down as America’s most useless. In fact the beat Bowery Electric use on “Freedom Fighter” sounds as familiar as ever, but that for once works in the song’s favour, in the same way as the ‘boring’ chorus in “Hip Hop” does – it slows the tune down, adds a layer of numb menace. It’s the rhythmic equivalent of a drone – where Bowery Electric used to go wrong of course was in putting the rhythmic equivalent of a drone behind the drone equivalent of a drone and the resulting drone-squared was like a banquet of cardboard.
Anyhow “Freedom Fighter” came out years ago, but I avoided it because it was them. It found Bowery Electric getting lyrical and tuneful, and sampling Nick Drake (clever move), and ending up like Saint Etienne rewriting Disco Inferno’s “Last Dance”. more »
Tom • FT • No Comments
2005 ARCHIVE The Music And Football Player Exchange, Notting Hill
One of the happy upshots of the Bosman Ruling which we have been living with for almost ten years, is the effect it has on players prices near the end of their contract. Take Clinton Morrison (Birmingham wish someone would) the Republic of Ireland striker. Bought for a club record of £4.25 million three years ago, he is certainly not at the end of his playing career. But his contract is up next year, and Birmingham have just realised that if they don’t sell him now, he will go on a free transfer.
Therefore the pack of clubs hovering are in an interesting position. Southampton, Norwich and better the devil you know Crystal Palace have all brandished chequebooks. But are also taking their time? What does this remind us of? Why, its record collectors returning week after week to the Music & Video Exchange in Notting Hill, waiting for a record the really want to go down in price for them to buy it. more »
Pete Baran • TMFD • 3 Comments
2009 ARCHIVE Rage vs X-Factor: Winners and Losers
Well, that’s that: the machine has been given a good beating and we can look forward to “Bulls On Parade” on the festive Argos ad next year. I will admit I didn’t think the RATM crew could do it: I was wrong. But as the dust settles on this most fractious and increasingly entertaining Christmas No.1 race, who has actually benefited? Here’s my round-up of winners and losers.
Joe McElderry: He’ll be Number 1 next week most likely, but while the ‘battle’ was never about him this puts him firmly in the “Leon Jackson” box, not the “Will Young” one. On the other hand, the constant refrain from the judges during the series was that he had a musical theatre kind of a voice, and this might nudge him in that direction and away from the fickle world of pop. Before dabbing your eyes over Joe’s lost dreams, it’s worth noting that if he’d sold as many as Alexandra did with “Hallelujah” last year, he’d have been #1, Rage or no Rage.
Rage Against The Machine: It’s good profile-raising stuff for them and their other material will do well from it, though unless MP3s come with reading lists in their IP3 tags the ‘educational’ element of RATM may be a little missing. The downsizing of their song’s target from “institutional racism” to “Simon Cowell” is probably a fairer reflection of their listeners’ concerns anyway but it’s left them looking a little… cuddlier… than once they did (and their participation in a classic British radio brouhaha has only helped). They themselves have joined in with gusto, of course: “RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE THANKS ‘EVERY FAN AND FREEDOM FIGHTER’ FOR THE ‘ANARCHY CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF 2009′” blared their press release. more »
Tom • FT • 59 Comments
2004 ARCHIVE The Ultimate Future Shock!!!!!!
Al_Ewing • FT • 15 Comments
2009 ARCHIVE BAND AID – “Do They Know It’s Christmas”
#543, 15th December 1984, video
“Do They Know It’s Christmas” is significant in one way, and insignificant in another. First, it raised a lot of awareness and money and established the pop single as an excellent mechanism for doing those things. This was significant. Gargantuan “supergroups” like this fell out of favour but charity records will be a constant from here on. more »
Tom • FT/Popular • 101 Comments
2004 ARCHIVE HOW TO DO A COVER VERSION
HOW TO DO A COVER VERSION
Distilled from several years of pop experience, here from the WORST to the BEST are ways to approach a cover version.
The Acoustic Guitar: i.e. “Any good song will sound great on an acoustic guitar”, runs the prized nugget of MOJO wisdom which results in Travis mauling “…Baby One More Time”. Culprits throw up their hands in innocence – “It’s not ironic, it’s a great tune”, not any more it isn’t mate.
The ‘Gary Jules’: When in doubt SLOW IT DOWN. Close relation of above, guaranteed to leech all life, rhythm and joy from a song. Critical banker, though (“Nick Cave’s sensitive reading of Bombalurina’s hit reveals the deep psychic wounds beneath the original’s flimsy pop etc etc.”)
The Atomic Kitten: After a karaoke night you maybe remember a quarter or a third of the performances more »
Tom • FT/New York London Paris Munich • 7 Comments
2003 ARCHIVE THE GREEK ALPHABET OF PISS-POOR POP: Introduction
THE GREEK ALPHABET OF PISS-POOR POP
I notice elsewhere, in my absence, some young scamp over on NYLPM has started a concept piece, some say think piece entitled the Alphabet Of Pop. Now no-one knows more than myself the beauty of lists, as my Week Of Wank and Breakfast Of Banality proves. Its cheap easy journalism and also gives one a built in deadline which battles stronger than the average slagging of Pavement with the Bombay Sapphire. So I have decided to counter such nonsense more »
Tanya Headon • I Hate Music • No Comments
2002 ARCHIVE The New Adventures of Tarkus
Tarkus vs The Strokes
Al_Ewing • FT • No Comments
2008 ARCHIVE Popular ’76
I give marks out of 10 to every song – based on whatever criteria you like, here’s your opportunity to say what you’d have given more than 6 to from 1976. Tick as many as you like.
Number One Hits Of 1976: Which Would You Have Given 6 Or More To?
View Results
Poll closes: No Expiry
Loading ...And use the comments to discuss the year as a whole, if you like.
Tom • FT/Popular • 551 Comments
2009 ARCHIVE The Strange Death of the UK Charts
This is a graph – done by anatol_merklich off the Poptimists LiveJournal community, so massive thanks to him – showing the number of new entries in the UK singles chart for each year from 1952 to the present.
more »
Tom • FT • 51 Comments
30 January 2013
I Love It
I see from my Twitter feed (Lena Dunham Panopticon Division) that the song “I Love It” by Icona Pop is “happening” now. That’s fine by me, I like that song. One reason I like it is because of its fiendish lyrical meta-trap viz.
SHOUTY ICONA POP WOMAN: “You’re from the seventies! And I’m a nineties bitch!”
POP CRITIC OF A CERTAIN AGE (THINKS): “You certainly are, you sound exactly like Shampoo.”
SHOUTY ICONA POP FANS: “Hahaha GRANDAD that PROVES YOU’RE OLD”
Devilish cunning. Anyway I wish them all the best and it will be interesting to see how actual young people take to the record.
Tom in FT • 10 Comments
29 January 2013
Modally young ancient vengeance
Young Avengers #1 is here and with it, duly, coverage. Of some sort. Don’t say we’re not up-to-the-minute. This is one of two ENORMOUS CLUNKING WORD-VOMITS I’m going to retch up about specific panels from Issue #1. And you’re in luck, because if the metaphor hasn’t already become wholly unpalatable, this bellyful has mystic sausages.
By now you may well know some of the facts about the reaction to Young Avengers #1: it’s got words and pictures in and the words and the pictures and the way that the words go with the pictures has been widely and rightly praised. It’s witty, it’s dramatic, it’s a little bit sad in places and it’s romantic in others. It’s done good, is what I’m saying. Really good.
And the Young Avengers? They’re a nice bunch of kids. Apart from, of course, the maggot in the orchard. Who might be on one of his less berserkedly, cacklingly, taking-over-the-world-with-fire-and-brimstone, bringing-about-Ragnarok, more reservedly scheming swings but neverless, is neither nice nor, appearances aside, a kid.
I speak, of course, of Loki.
Loki! He does what he wants!
Serrure! Except when he doesn’t.
LOKI!!! That fucker destroyed Asgard
THIS GUY! He’s not always a guy.
FOR ALL THE GODS’ SAKES! He destroyed Asgard AGAIN!
It’s a bird! No, literally.
Hel-with-one-’l'! He’s had his name written out of every debtor’s book. And when he found one he couldn’t, he ate himself.
…Wait, what? Yes, it is time to delve into the pits of NORSE CRISIS ANALYSIS, of GUESS WHICH FUCKER DESTROYED ASGARD NO REALLY GUESS YOU HAVE ONE GUESS AND IT’S RIGHT, of why everyone, even and especially Asgard’s golden son can’t resist the trickster because without Loki life isn’t quiet but there’s a risk that when the pain comes, it might be blunter but also never as funny, of what the hel-with-one-’l’ this ten-thousand-year-old dude is doing in a kid’s body, of, most crucially, LOKICEPTION.
WARNING: This will be the last time I do a big discussion of this in the Young Avengers write ups but this is COVERED IN SPOILERS for how Loki came to be where he is in #1, so Thor by J Michael Straczynski, The Mighty Thor by Matt Fraction, Siege by absolutely everyone (including Gillen and McKelvie) and Journey into Mystery 622-645. You don’t need to know all this to think about Young Avengers, in fact, I would be super excited to hear the thoughts of someone who doesn’t and is reading it. But this follows some threads of my own thoughts. And by that I mean ‘three and a half thousand words about Loki.’
more »
Hazel in FT • 15 Comments
24 January 2013
Lost Property Office 2-2: An Olive In Sausage-Casing
How can we follow last weeks wonderful tales of hands across the water and the stirring, beating heart of communist Cuba? Well mainly by being rude to an out of date new age owl based diary, and City AM. We really give City AM a kicking. We hate City AM. All this and Chilean pesos, pennys found on the floor and a huge giant laminated poster which is remarkably scary. All of this and a terrible joke in the intro that might put you off for life.
Today’s guest plucky enough to brave the duvet of doom in the Lost Property Office is the old Lollard’s stalwart and raconteur in chief Alix Campbell. She brings us tales of South America, London, Dorset and bins. We talk about flightless birds, collecting coins and other things lost and found. Music comes from the Balkans we think, Baille Balkan Funk perhaps, which maybe is just all Sam & The Womp all the time…
lost property 2-2
Pete Baran in Lost Property Podcast • No Comments
You conduct yourself like one drunk or asleep, belching out between your snores, “Yes, No.”
From The Bondage of the Will, pg. 113 of Luther’s Works, Vol. 33
For more in like vein, check the Martin Luther Insult Generator
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 2 Comments
23 January 2013
Guess My Theory – Sherlock Undercover Edition
One of my favourite things about the most modern incarnations of Sherlock Holmes* is how they deal with Sherlock’s apparent mastery of disguise. Visual Media is wary of masters of disguise** because the medium in itself is playing exactly the same trick on the audience. Robert Downey Jr is NOT really Sherlock Holmes, but we have to believe he is. But if he is Sherlock Holmes in disguise, the audience should be able to spot the disguise, else we aren’t in on the game. Hence RDJ dragging up appallingly in a Game Of Shadows amongst others. So obviously then I saw this picture I thought it was Benidct Cumberbatch in some sort of lousy Sherlock disguise.
(Note, Gollum is not in the original picture – that is my theory.) more »
Pete Baran in FT • No Comments
22 January 2013
Rent-A-Mob Switch-A-Chant
Do you find it difficult putting together a political rally? Do you find that your poorly performing football club is losing fans by the thousands and it is hard for you to maintain a general sense of hub-bub in the stands? Do you really like the Spanish word “Olé” poorly enunciated but loudly projected over and over again to what, everyone in my office agreed, was the Olé Olé Olé tune? Well salvation is at hand for you:
I must admit I have always wondered who was singing the Olé Olé Olé tune at many football grounds. more »
Pete Baran in FT • 3 Comments
rah rah ragnarok*
Beyond the hills the far horizon/In the purple evening sky/
You’ll find the Valley of Valhalla/There when you die
^^^Actual Young Avengers/Old Boney M fanfic crossover aka ‘By the Rivers of Piflheim’
*Post title courtesy piratemoggy
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 1 Comment
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