Apr 21 Britain's longest-surviving music weekly, the New Musical Express, is marking its 50th anniversary at the moment. This week, a special edition that should be entitled "The 'New Morrissey Express' And Everything Else." Next week, a pullout supplement, "The Stone Roses Splashing Around In Paint, That 'Bowie's Back' Gag, And 23 Other Images." By Christmas, the "Oasis Were Crap, Really" special.
The NME prides itself on being the ultimate barometer of cool, a position that is both its success and its downfall. Anyone who knows anything about the British music scene will have a certain tinge of pride from an appearance on the cover of the NME. It still means that the act has made it, if only for one week.
Yet because the NME has this hipper-than-thou attitude, it often comes across as trying *too* hard. There's a feeling that what the paper is pushing this week is good, but only for this week. Just around the corner is something bigger, something better, something so wonderful it will not just knock your socks off but will blow your entire underwear collection well into next week. Sometimes this is true: the paper supported the careers of such luminaries as the Beatles, Jesus & Mary Chain, and Jimmy Eat World. It's also been responsible for such toe-curling embarrassments as Pop Will Eat Itself, Jamiroquai, and the Hives.
According to its myths, every cool act has passed through the pages of NME, with the possible exception of Abba. Yet, by concentrating on the next big cheap thrill, NME constantly misses the one that is here already. It's the Jordan Catalano of the music press, constantly seeking something better, when a perfectly acceptable thrill is there if only they would spend a few weeks and work on it.
The NME is stuffed full of lazy journalists. This has resulted in the biggest problem: the "scene." A "scene" is defined as a bunch of bands that has some tenuous link in the imagination of the lazy journalist, though this link may or may not exist in reality. Any band that flourished in Northern England circa 1990 was instantly dubbed part of the "Madchester" scene, even though the link between the Charlatans and Northside was geography only. Any act that came from the UK circa 1995 and used guitars was "Britpop", even though standard-bearers Blur always wanted to be Americans, and rivals Oasis were never more than hype.
The "scene" shorthand continues to this day; the Jimmies and Hundred Reasons are meant to be part of a "scene" called EMO that doesn't exist (though if the descriptions of EMO boys on justchelle.com is correct, I may have to revise that opinion.) Apparently, EMO is all guitars and confessional lyrics. In the 50th anniversary issue, there's a new "scene": the "No Name" scene, containing groups that may - or may not, if they don't feel like it - swear, wear dark clothes, play a vaguely punkish song, and (er) that's it. By these definitions, neither "scene" excludes Alanis Morissette.
I've read the paper on and off (but mainly off) for the past fifteen years. It's changed in that time - Andrew Collins has gone from occasional gig review to professional pontificator; Stewart Maconie from staff scribe to radio DJ; Danny Baker from star interviewer to breakfast on national radio and back again. It's never been my prime source of cool tips - Smash Hits (way back before the magazine concentrated on plastic pop) Kerrang (don't laugh) and Record Mirror (the inessential guide to modern dance tracks circa 1990) were always less earnest and more fun.
These days, word of mouth counts for far more than press hype. Eva Cassidy and Dido came up below everyone's radar last year, and I've found more quality from recommendations amongst my friends than in a month of magazines. Yet there will always be a place for the well-crafted interview with the act du jour, 2000 words extolling the virtue of Radiohead's new album, or a two inch snippet that leaves me yearning to find out more.
Any publication that can inspire such conflicting emotions must be doing *something* right. Happy birthday, NME. See you for the diamond jubilee...
Apr 20 Back to the parents, pick up a television. From a store that *does* accept £10 notes. Gotta love Beatties, the local store that only sells good quality stuff.
Day 222 since the Crimes Against Humanity. CNN drops the "War On Tara" guff from its website front page. Yes! No longer do we have to sit through pages of crap about how some little schmuck from Texas with a teensie-weensie can't get a girl, and takes it out on a nation.
This week's Saturday Five:
1. What's your favorite TV show and why? Of the shows still in production, I don't miss BUFFY (even though the last two episodes have tended to the tedious), I don't miss FRIENDS (just in case something good turns up.) Either Buffy or GRANGE HILL, the series notionally set in a comprehensive school that is as realistic as they get. Apart from the last half show of the series - that's never been realistic in 25 years. Of those no longer in production but still airing in reruns, WANTED could come back any time, and with advances in videophone technology, could well combine with INTERCEPTOR for a live show. THE CRYSTAL MAZE and 2.4 CHILDREN defined the early 90s. I don't pass them up often
2. Who is your favorite television star? Ray Cokes. Purely because you can't do that on live television, except he did. And MAY TO DECEMBER, because it was consistently funny.
3. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Erf, either BLUE PETER (highly educational) or THUNDERCATS (lots of hunky characters.)
4. What show do you think should have been cancelled by now? Dare I say it? Cancel MILLIONAIRE. Return it to event television, as they've done in the US. We'll have a lot less EASTENDERS / CORRIE / EMMERDALE / THE BILL / BROOKSIDE / HOLLYOAKS, too. Over 20 hours of soaps in prime time television is far too much.
5. What new show do you hope comes back for more? We've already got a second series of THE WAITING GAME, which pleases me no end. I'll take a prime time slot for THE ENEMY WITHIN, and further adventures of "17".
The Saturday Five is based on the Friday Five, but localised to the UK and (er) written on the Saturday.
Apr 18 The Buffy without the wedding. Cripes, this is as dull as anything. Buffy attempts to entertain, Dawn does it better, the dark green dresses look good on everyone (especially Tara) but there's a hole the size of Willow's cleavage in the plot. We don't need yet another cheap retread of It's A Wonderful Life
.
Friends returns to the Character Development that has ruined the past few years, with The Double Episode Where Joey Comes Out. A distinct lack of jokes. Um, hello, comedy? Funny? Laughter? Jokes?!
From a usenet post by The Reverend Bob.
The Sony Music Entertainment label Sony/Epic is using a copy protection system known as 'Key2Audio' on the recently released Celine Dion album 'A New Day Has Come'. This copy-protection system was developed by another Sony subsidiary. When attempting to play this disc in a CD-ROM drive, it can cause a computer to crash with the possible concomitant problems that can result from such an event. Sony/Epic are aware of this and the discs allegedly bear a label stating that they "will not play on a PC or a Mac" and are allegedly not labeling the discs as CDs or 'CD-Digital Audio' as they do not comply to the red-book specification that defines a CD although they are on a 5-inch CD-type disc, are packaged in standard CD jewel cases and are sold in amongst standard CDs and are intended for use on a home CD-DA player. However, there have also been as yet unsubstantiated reports that the discs have caused further damage beyond simply crashing systems as a result of the intentional corruption of the discs session data affecting CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive firmware in unpredictable fashions. I'm fairly sure that deliberately seeking to cause a computer system to crash and engaging in behaviour that may result in data-loss and/or corruption can both be considered offences under the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 AFAIA. Hmmm... a quick search through the HMSO site gives us: ============================ Computer Misuse Act 1990 (c18) Section 3 - Unauthorised modification of computer material (1) A person is guilty of an offence if— (a) he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer; and (b) at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge. (2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing— (a) to impair the operation of any computer; (b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or (c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data. (3) The intent need not be directed at— (a) any particular computer; (b) any particular program or data or a program or data of any particular kind; or (c) any particular modification or a modification of any particular kind. (4) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite knowledge is knowledge that any modification he intends to cause is unauthorised. (5) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether an unauthorised modification or any intended effect of it of a kind mentioned in subsection (2) above is, or is intended to be, permanent or merely temporary. ================================= Also: ================================= Terrorism Act 2000 (c11) Section 1- Terrorism:interpretation (1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where- (a) the action falls within subsection (2), (b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, (2) Action falls within this subsection if it- (e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system. =========================== So maybe i'm pushing it a little, but ultimately it's for the courts to decide if such behaviour as that being engaged in by Sony Music Entertainment is criminal and it should be noted that PC and Mac are proprietary trade names for IBM PC clones and Apple Macintosh computers - the discs do not seem to state that they should not be used on any computer or non CD-DA drive. The bastards are definitely misrepresenting their product though, and hoping no-one notices the fast one that they're pulling...
Apr 17 A Socialist writes to az.general:
The best thing that can be said about Bill Clinton is that when he was president, our biggest concern was who he was screwing. Now that the whole country is getting screwed, that seems kind of funny. Now we have a president who combines all the best qualities of Dan Quayle and Kim Jong Il. Just like Kim Jong Il, he inherited his job from his father and is considered by most of the world to be a lunatic, and just like Dan Quayle, he's second in command. If Gore is nominated as the Democratic candidate for 2004, I will personally write to my Congressman and demand an investigation into massive drug abuse on the Democratic National Committee. Al Gore is the biggest loser in the United States. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that Gore won the 2000 election -- if you ran for against a potted plant for president of your apartment, and the plant got 49% of the votes, you'd be a loser by any reasonable standard. I know that I would feel a lot better about myself if I got 51% of the votes running against a houseplant than if I got 51% of the votes running against George W. Bush. Conversely, if the Democratic National Committee nominates a houseplant to run against Bush, I will feel much more confident in their sanity and state of sobriety than if they nominate Al Gore.
In not entirely unrelated news, the Republican party in Florida has sent a bus ticket to the treasurer of the Democratic party in the state. The treasurer, Alec Baldwin, said that he would leave the country if George Bush Jr were elected president. Baldwin has declined the gift, on the grounds that a) Bush Jr wasn't actually elected president, and b) the ticket is only valid if transferring on the Ontario - Vermont frontier.
Back to domestic politics, and Gordon Brown confirmed what many of us have known for years: you can't trust Labour, New or Otherwise. Delivering his tax and spending plans for the coming years, finance minister Brown confirmed that's exactly what he would do - tax and spend. The chancellor gambles on two imponderables - that the public is prepared to pay more for public services (not a given, but not an unreasonable expectation) and that the state sector is able to make good use of extra funds. The latter flies in the face of experience; indeed, the plans include an extra bureaucrat to ensure that the (rest of) the funds is correctly used. Sadly for Labour, this increase in direct taxation flatly contradicts the assertion in last year's election manifesto, promising that the government wouldn't (er) increase direct taxation. I wrote back in January that the NHS needs major surgery, not the sticking plaster of extra money. Yes, the UK is behind Europe on total funding for the health service, but the entire gap is because people don't pay anything other than tax towards the service. Our neighbours spend more money as individuals rather than through the state, and they do not provide health care through a tax-funded monopoly but through a mixture of competing providers. They manage to bring more money into health care, and to spend it more efficiently.
New research shows that Internet Explorer's back button is a security risk. As, indeed, is the rest of the browser. Weaver recommends using Mozilla or Off By One.
Apr 16 My apologies to the people of Australia on their new #1 single. After four weeks, local lass Kasey Chambers' wonderful Not Pretty Enough
proves no match for the unstoppable Austrian. A US #1 in 1962 becomes an Australian chart topper for DJ Ötzi - Hey Baby
is at the top. Ant McPartlan reckons the whole country should be ashamed. Kasey Chambers is making waves at AAA in the US, the centre of the world for Excellence In Songwriting. She stands no chance in the UK.
Still on the songs front...
Rev Rev Victoria W McCabe: >i think that a reason that kylie isn't as bad to some of us in america as it >is to those in europe or australia is that we haven't had kylie overkill all >these years. kylie was around in the late 80s, cute and bubble gum annoying, >but not popular enough to annoy our young impressionable minds. then she >disappeared. wvr This is true. According to Gambo, the Ulykie Ignome had a bit of success, then faded until the Na Na Na Na song. Over here, she's on to 32 hits [1], of which no more than five [2] cut the mustard with this critic. Vic >she's still not something that cracks through the charts >here in wv. wvr [checks listings of broadcasters in that state] You don't listen to Top 40 radio, do you (: Vic >from what i heard while there and what >seems to be popular on the charts, europe at least has been saturated with >dance pop music, particularly abba disco wannabes, for years. wvr [grits teeth] Tell me about it. The ABBA copyists I can live with, as their work is infinitely hummable, even if it's just the same three songs over and over again. The Bishop Thumpity-Thump music that is (allegedly) popular in clubs and drones over national radio is too much. Vic >which is probably why you all drool over jimmy eats world >and john mayer and other cool american sounds. :p wvr No, we (well, I) lap these up because a) they're quality stuff, and b) they don't come through the regular channels. For instance, while writing this, Winamp has thrown up "Wilbery Twist", "Oh Yeah" and "Supergirl." None of the Travelling Wilburys, Johnny A nor Reamonn [3] ever get any play on UK radio, nor are they likely to. Vic >quite a novelty to those of us who have been sheltered from disco's >resurrection. wvr The big thing over here is putting the vocals from one song to the instrumentation of another. For instance, Kylie has performed said Na Na Na Na song over "Blue Monday." One of the tv channels has spliced "Bootylicious" with the sound of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." And record buyers will soon be able to purchase the backing track of "Ray Of Light" overdubbed with the words to the favourite tune of three year olds, "The Wheels On The Bus (Go Round And Round)" [4] [5] [6] Vic >i'm just assuming that australia is supporting its native >soap opera star. :) wvr Which one? Would that be Natalie Imbruglia? Holly Chambers? (responsible for an even worse track than TWOTB(GRAR)) Jason Donovan? (now starring in Rocky Horror, so doing *something* right.) Vic >hmm...maybe more 80s american artists should make >their way overseas. i think tony basil could be the next big thing in >england! wvr The "Mickey" revival is *so* 1999. The person responsible, a 23 year old woman dressed as a 12 year old, has been taken out and sent to host a show on a tv channel that no-one watches. [7] Vic >it seems that sheryl, alanis, and jewel (not that she is in the same >league) have tried to make a comeback by becoming more radio friendly and >popped up. wvr Fair point. Certainly Alanis's newie struck me as being awfully commercially accessible; Sheryl is remaking All I Wanna Do. Jewel seems to have gone country, not pop. Vic >jewel may be getting a lot of radio play wvr Not over here she's not, where the single entered the Best Sellers In Stores lists at #93 on 853 sales. Vic >alanis >seems to have successfully added more pop elements to her image and sound, yet >she has retained her good lyrics and acoustic base. as i said, i'm not loving >the new alanis album yet, though i at least like the lyrics. wvr It feels like a grower. Just as Jagged Little Pill was... Vic >sarah mclachlan and beth orton apparently have albums in the works for this >year. i hope they don't make the same mistakes. wvr Canoe.ca reported that the divine Sarah may delay release, owing to pregnancy. Never mind, just gives us more time to make "Angel" the smash hit it deserves to be. Beth was last heard performing "She Cries Your Name" at 8:25 Saturday morning on the tannoy system at my local supermarket. Footnotes: [1] Including duets with Jason Donovan, Keith Washington, Nick Cave and Robbie Williams, but excluding vocal samples on records by the Dreammasters and Towa Tei. [2] That would be "If You Were With Me Now" (1991); "Confide In Me" and "Put Yourself In My Place" (1994); "Where the Wild Roses Grow" (1995); and "Some Kind of Bliss" (1997). [3] Germans doing the sort of high-octane rock ballad that was popular in the US in the early 90s. [4] This is not a joke. Ask Auntie Kazaa about "Mad Donna". [5] I blame Cliff Richard for this phenomenon. He started it. He put "The Lord's Prayer" to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne" and sold a million. [6] These combinations work, to a point. Amongst those that don't are "Are Friends Electric" + "Freak Like Me", said Kylie / New Order mix, and Colin Sell + A Piano. [7] Yes, Anna from CBBC's XCHANGE *really is* Anna Kumble, aka Lolly.
One of the great banes of life in California is the Sport Utility Vehicle, the SUV, the enormous four-wheel-drive cars that are also becoming increasingly popular in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. They take up an enormous amount of space on the road. They clog up parking places. They use an enormous amount of petrol and do an enormous amount of damage to the environment.
Because they are marketed as a safe family car - that is, safe, as in killing other people in a crash rather than yourself - their popularity has grown. Most car manufacturers now look to them as a big moneymaker. Sometimes it seems as though every freeway is populated entirely by people in SUVs talking into their cellphones.
There has been some opposition. Websites devoted to attacking the SUV have been set up. Last year, Earth Liberation activists in Eugene, Oregon set fire to a dealership there and destroyed $1m (about £700,000) worth of SUVs. But now a more subtle approach has been initiated with dramatic results.
Over recent months, SUV drivers in Los Angeles have found a small printed card stuck on their windscreens. It reads thus: "Road-hogging, gas-guzzling, air-fouling vulgarian! Clearly you have an extremely small penis or you wouldn't drive such a monstrosity. For the adequately endowed, there are hybrids or electrics. 310 798 1817." From het grauniad world dispatch.
Journalists are finally allowed into Jenin, Palestine, where Israeli forces have admitted to carrying out a massacre. At least 3000 are homeless, and around 1000 are believed dead. An admission that this was the case by Israel's armed forces last week was retracted within hours.
The Sun calls for Charles Windsor and Camilla Parker-Horse to marry. "With Camilla at his side, and a ring on her finger, he will have a mature partner who is well able to guide him through the difficult years ahead. And in the Queen's golden jubilee year, what greater joy could there be than a wedding?" Abdication springs to mind, as does the immediate closure of The Sun...
Apr 15 Berwick Upon Tweed may yet return to Scotland. The border town, which is only English following some accidents of history, has been offered a king's ransom to move north of the border. The ransom in question is 10,000 Merks, in lieu of which Berwick was handed to Scotland in 1174. Now valued at about £8000, the Scots want to buy the biggest town in Northumberland on the cheap. The people of the town are interested, but the mayor and his council isn't.
Two London families are engaged in a legal squabble over the ownership of a cat. Esmee - or Pippin, as the Grants call her - was reared by the Moans. But when she was four she was adopted by the Grants, who live on the other side of the road, because they thought she was a stray. When the difficulty came to light, the two families agreed to share the moggy. It was when the Grants put their house up for sale and insisted on taking the cat with them that the dispute escalated, and a judge at Woolwich county court ruled that she should stay with the Grants. The Moans intend to appeal and both sides have hired barristers. Messrs Mew, Eattit and Pounce will chew up the case and cough furballs all over the judge's robes.
So I need a new television, the old one has a green smear at the top of the screen and a corresponding purple tint at the bottom. I'd like to have one delivered to my home, so off to the country's largest catalogue shop to see what they offer. Er, nothing. They won't let me browse with The World's Greatest Browser. How completely dumb is that? It's like going into the store, and being told "Oh, feel free to buy anything you want. We take cash, apart from £10 notes. And we take credit cards, though not ones that expire when there isn't an 'R' in the month."