Looking For The Next Best Thing

The BluesBerries Get Some Recognition

2011-11-09T13:19:00.004+01:00

From Microsoft of all places!

Invisible Friends: An Explanation

2011-11-02T18:08:00.000+01:00

There's a moment in every Musician's biopic where the star gets the idea for his song from something said by him or something else. The inspiration moment. Dewey Cox is going to "walk ... hard. WALK... HARD".

Well "Invisible Friends" happened something like that, I heard another song, in this case, where Invisible Friends were mentioned and I said something like "I've got invisible friends, too, and I don't want to see the other ones" foollowed closely my "ooh that could be a blues line", the conceit, invisible friends, silent friends and leper friends, came soon afterwards.

I tried and tried to get tasteless and smell-free friends too but it just wouldn't work. "Some of my friends are tasteless, the rest I just don't want to"... what? Swallow? Lick? eat?

Anyway, the rest was just something I'd been working on before that. A sort of anti-blues. I'm no gambling man, it wasn't a woman that did me in, etc. Fortunately I wrote this before hearing The Folksmen sing I Never Did No Wandering in the Christopher Guest movie A Mighty Wind:

Never heard the whistle of a southbound freight,
Or the singing of it’s driving wheel,
No I, never did no wanderin’
Never did no wanderin’
Never did no wanderin’ after all

Hopefully I've avoided all out repudiation of the blues in that, in my song, something has left the singer with no friends.

"It wasn't the girl that ruined me, although she played her part"

The singer is ruined but not for the usual reasons. Even I don't really know what, though drink probably has something to do with it.

My Band Has A Website

2011-10-20T12:27:00.000+02:00

http://thebluesberries.com

Try it now!

Pass it on to all your friends!

Tell strangers in the street!

Worlds Longest Book

2011-10-11T10:46:00.004+02:00

From Magnificent Ruin

Just Trying Something

2011-10-07T11:26:00.001+02:00

99 Secrets Explained

2011-10-05T17:18:00.000+02:00

99 Secrets was written after discovering something on the Internet called "99 Secrets". It was written by Carl Steadman who was a co-founder of one my early favourite internet places, suck.com and, according to wikipedia, he was one of the web's first "micro-celebrities".In Carl's 99 Secrets the second secret is:

"Once she told him a story about a white knight, and a princess that didn't need saving. "Am I the knight?" he asked her. No, she answered. You're the person I'm telling the story to."

The list, I think, tries to be 99 scenes from various love-lives summed up in the pithiest way an Internet micro-celebrity could manage. As the above example shows, this often seems to be in the form of weird passive-aggressive digs at some ex, real or imagined, for a past slight or transgression.Past the weird icky feeling that, boy, did Carl have some issues, it's sometimes funny and sometimes poignant and occasionally both at the same time.Item 3 is:

Stay, he asked her, not meaning forever.

Carl, you might think, is a bit of a dick, isn't he? But it's a good line and it's almost the first line of 99 Secrets Blues.

When I said you could stay, I never meant forever.
When I said you could stay, I never meant forever.
Now it's no secret we can't be together.

I think I made it more of an argument than the inner monologue of some constantly monologuing self-loathing hipster, but the passive-aggressive spirit of Carl's 99 Secrets is still there.

I often introduce 99 Secrets as a journey in to my little black heart, so I can't be too disapproving of Carl. I feel I wrote this at a very different time in my life, but it was my heart, even if the structure was from someone else. It's interesting to me now that, in order to make the words to flow as a blues, I changed the meaning, or perhaps just the setting. Carl's 99 seems to be a lot of private thoughts, whereas I seem to recast those as all out fights, in just about all the ones I took.

9 When he told her that he needed her, he meant that he needed her to desire him.

When I told you I needed you, you know I spoke the truth
When I told you I needed you, you know I spoke the truth
I needed you to want me like I wanted you

31 I think I love you, he said. Is that what you think, she said.

I think I love you that's all I had to say
I said I think I love you that's all I had to say
She told me to think a little harder, boy, as she walked away.

37. She knew him, because she knew his failings.

She said she knew me, she knew me all too well
Oh yeah she knew me, she knew me all too well
She knew all those little ways that she could make me fail

77. I suppose I should have known that when you told me you needed your space, that you'd find it in somebody else's closet, he said.

When you asked me for space I tried to give you that
You asked me for space I tried to give you that
How was I supposed to know it'd be in my best friends flat

85. You've made all those promises before, she said. The least you could do is come up with some new ones.

I made all of these promises so many times before
All these empty promises so many times before
If I really loved you, girl, I'd come up with one or two more

Looking at it now it was a much greater theft than I remember...Of course I only have 6 secrets, the others would really make the song too long and I'm not sure if I can truly say that I've lived all of the 99 like I have these 6.

As I say at concerts "As for the other 93 secrets... It's a secret."

Got To Get Yourself Connected

2011-09-24T15:03:00.000+02:00

Some have you may have noticed I'm trying out this ReverbNation thing. It's essentially Myspace, with bells on, but I like the experience a lot better so far. The bad Myspace thing is that it still seems to be bands showing off to other bands, which always feels a bit unhealthy, but the bonus is all sorts of stats and the feeling that being number one for Blues in the Steyr area is a thing to be proud of.

The BluesBerries even have a shop now through ReverbNation, have a look here, so if you ever wanted a t-shirt with me on it, now's your chance. I've not tried anything in their yet, so if you do buy something let me know how that works out for you.

She Ain't No Good For You

2011-09-05T10:08:00.000+02:00

The 'Berries do Elvis. Well, Arthur Crudup, actually, but you can't but help let a little bit of the King in.

Who's In Town!

2011-08-27T10:59:00.000+02:00

The BluesBerries On YouTube At Last!

2011-08-21T13:44:00.000+02:00

Vanilla Pudding, of course. I'm not sure what I'm doing with my hands on the growly verse...

Oh, and going to the YouTube page itself has some fun suggestions for other videos you might like Cheesecake and Smoothies mostly, which could have been a good name for the band.

Don't Call It A Comeback

2011-08-19T13:49:00.000+02:00

I've missed so many of these due to Holidays, sickness and just being too busy (or lazy). So here's a whole bunch:

77: Part A - someone you wish would sing a duet with Part B

Warren Zevon

78: Part B - someone you wish would sing a duet with Part A

Jill Sobule. They did a live version of "Jackson" on a bootleg I heard and I wouldn't mind hearing some more like that.

79. A song that makes you think of the color blue:

Blue (Da Ba Dee) - Eiffel 65

How could it not?

80: Your favorite band beginning with the letter A

Athlete, if only for the fact they made the least hip-hop song ever about their love of hip-hop.

81: A song you like with Monday in the title:

Stormy Monday, this Isaac Hayes version is a little over done, but cool.

82: A song you would dedicate to the boy/girl you have a crush on:

Perfect Woman, as I do at most gigs

83: A song you would/have dance(d) with a parent to, at your wedding:

Play That Funky Music

84: A song that you like that's in a language you don't know:

Jacques Brel - Au Suivant

85: A song that you always put on a new mixed CD you make for everyone:

Dancing In A Lesbian Bar

86: A song that you like by a band you suspect is going to break up:

Huh?

87: A song you play when someone breaks up with you:

Lyle Lovett - Good Intentions

"It's a Fact of life no one cares to mention, she wasn't good but she had good intentions"

88: A song that you like that's from a different culture:

Fela Kuti - Water Get No Enemy

89: A song that you love to work-out to:

Weather Girls - It's Raining Men

Doesn't everyone?

90: A song that describes your work angst:

Little Village - Don't Bug Me When I'm Working

91: A song you like to sing to babies:

I'm not sure I've ever sung anything to a baby.

92: A song you play when you can't sleep:

LCD Soundsystem - I'm Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up

93: A song you play when you break someone's heart:

Ice Cube - Wrong Nigga To Fuck Wit

Because, yes, I'm an Office Space cliché.

94: Your favorite song that features the use of a harmonica:

Charlie Musselwhite - Christo Redemptor

95: Your favorite song that starts with the letter "B"

George Thorogood - Bad To The Bone

96: A song that makes you think about stars and the universe:

Flaming Lips - Do You Realize

If I'm being startlingly literal, certainly.

97: Your favorite classical song:

I don't have one. Sure I could say Ride of the Valkyries, or What's Opera, Doc? but I'd be cheating...

98: Your favorite song that you remember from a kid's show:

I think I mentioned before I have a soft spot for the Roobarb and Custard theme tune.

99: A song that you like in part, because the title is so good:

Moribund the Burgermeister - Peter Gabriel

100: A song from the last CD mix you made someone:

Well, I put a bunch of stuff on a CD to test Andrea's car radio, but all I had was Drive-By Truckers and members live things and off cuts. I think it did have a live version of Try by Jason Isbell on it, though and it is one of my favourite songs.

101: A song from a singer that your friends have met, and that makes you jealous:

Why would I be jealous?

102: A song by a female singer you think does not have a very good voice:

There's probably plenty, but I don't listen to any regularly. Though I suppoes I could make a Yoko Ono joke here, or something.

103: Your favorite Disney movie song:

The Wonderful thing About Tiggers

104: A song that reminds you of the ocean:

Men At Work - Down By the Sea

Sea, ocean, it's all the same right? That and those cymbal sounds.

105: A song that reminds you of something you regret:

Ned Sublette - Feelin' No Pain

Nothing in particular, I just used to drink a lot, still probably drink a bit too much, but this was also the semi-ironic soundtrack to many of the sessions.

106: A song you have to change right away if it comes on the radio:

Too many years listening to Austrian radio has numbed me to bad songs I might normally tune away from.

Now I Just Drink Whiskey And Drive Around My Friends

2011-07-06T18:09:00.000+02:00

OK, so I keep forgetting this thing and I doubt anybody really is reading it. It's far too self-indulgent, but I'll post them when I remember. I really should add a rant and a review or two as they are my content, but for now at least this is keeping my posting rate moderate.

71: A song that gives you a headache:

The version of Hallelujah (yes!) came closest recently. Almost as bad as the Bono version, and infinitely more charming.

72: A song that you love that you first heard on a mixed CD made for you:

Blur - This Is A Low

My brother gave me a car tape a long while a go. He hadn't made it for me, but I guess it was the thought that counted. This was on it. I suppose I had heard it before, but the constant repetitions of it gave me a better appreciation of it.

73: A song someone has said reminds them of you:

Drive-By Truckers - Dead Drunk & Naked

Well, I used to sing an acoustic variation of this song and the 'Berries still do our own version. Plus when I started trying to sing it it was an apt title and that it's to do with a loneliness made it moreso. I made my mother cry with this once, too.

74: A song from a band that you wish you could hang out with:

I've got my own band and have hung out with some others. Don't really care mouch for it.

75: The song that you most recently downloaded:

Cage The Elephant - Aint No Rest For The Wicked

Heard this on an ad for some computer game and then found out the band were giving it away on their site.

76. Your favorite song beginning with the letter A

Prince - Alphabet Street

So Glam It's Absurd.

I Never Meant Forever

2011-06-30T14:45:00.001+02:00

70: A song that you wish someone would cover:

99 Secrets - The Bluesberries

I had a dream once that Eric Claption had covered this. But I don't think he checks myspace for Austrian Acoustic blues bands that regularly.

Updated to add: Ooops, I can't count...

69: Your least favorite song by an actor turned singer:

All that Hugh Laurie album. Good band, good producer, rich white bloke groaning and gurning over everything. His apology for co-opting the blues isn't the most craven thing on the internet, but that's only because it has plenty of competition.

Good For Relieving My Tension

2011-06-29T17:46:00.000+02:00

62. Your favorite song by a singer turned actor:

Frank Sinatra - My Way

Because every music list eventually reaches the point that you have to put "My Way" on it (or possibly New York New York), plus Frank could act. He was very good in The Manchurian Candidate which is a great movie.

63: Your favorite duet:

Lyle Lovett & Francine Reed - What Do You Do

64: Your favorite song featured in a musical:

Sweet Transvestite - Rocky Horror Show

65: Your favorite song by a actor turned singer:

William Shatner - Common People

Ok, so he can't sing. He knows that, you know that, Joe Jackson knows that. He's long since got in on the joke and plays very much to what is expected of him. But, well, he's The Shat!

66: A song you like to clean the house to:

2Pac - California Love

Ain't nothing more gangsta than dusting.

67: Your least favorite song by a singer turned actor:

Madonna - American Pie

68: A song you have requested to be played on the radio:

Roachford - Cuddly Toy

And I've just listened to it for the first time in ages and it's a cracking track.

It Went Hmmm Hmm

2011-06-22T18:00:00.000+02:00

61. A song that you like to sing in the shower:

Warren Zevon - Desperados Under The Eaves

Did I mention that in LA Noire you can drive down Gower Street (not Avenue). It's the best view of the "Hollywoodland" sign

Life Is Short But The Night Is Long

2011-06-21T15:11:00.000+02:00

55. A song you've listened to so many times that you just can't listen to it anymore.

Much of my dislike for Oasis comes from the jukebox at the bar I lived in having a couple of their songs and a couple obsessive fans as patrons, so I guess this would have to be:

Oasis - Live Forever

56. A song that is insanely simple/repetitive, but that you consider awesome anyway.

PiL - This Is Not A Love Song

57. Your favorite song from your favorite genre.

Is underappreciated singer/song-writer actually a genre? I've probably exhausted a lot of these already, so here's a marginally different one.

Joe Henry - Civilians

58. Your therapist in a song.

Elvis Costello - Tramp The Dirt Down

It helps with the bitterness that still lingers after all these years. There's a certain strain of hindsight that claims that era, you know the one with that woman, was the painful price for England's economic resurgance. Really?

59. A song whose lyrics you take advice from.

So, I've had Oufit and Brown Shoes Don't Make It. That leaves:

Genesis - Counting Out Time

60. Your favorite movie-moment song.

Since I've already mentioned every single Hallelujah, my choices here are severely curtailled. I'm going to cheat here, because although the Terminator tv series never quite figured out what it wanted to be and had far too many time-travellers it was occasionally good television and had two sequences that have some spine-tingleingly good use of music.

The second season starts with Shirley Manson convering Samson & Delilah to a lot of blurry slow-motiuon and it suggested a stylised version of the show that the producers immediately forgot. They had however ended the last season with a fantastic use of Johhny Cash.

Terminator : Sarah Connor Chronicles - Johhny Cash - When A Man Comes Around

A quick mention should go to the Sons of Anarchy, the producers also commisioned a cover version of a song for a set piece, end of season in this instance, getting Curtis Stiegers to record a pretty soulful John The Revelator.

Obviously, I have some weird Revelations thing going on...

Winston Churchill Dressed In Drag

2011-06-14T16:13:00.000+02:00

52. A song that you've been listening to for years & you still don't know what the heck they're saying.

Most early Beck I'd have to say. So let's go with:

Beck - Where It's At

53. The song that you're most proud of knowing all the words to.

I probably can't anymore, but I'm pretty sure I used to be able to sing-along to all of Genesis' Suppers Ready

54. The song that got you hooked on your favorite band/artist.

Favourite? Hmmm. Here's a song that got me in to a band, and most of their subsequent albums, and probably paved the way for me to investigate a lot of other music:

Living Color - Love Rears Up Its Ugly Head

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

2011-06-14T11:54:00.001+02:00

I have such a terrible sense of humour. I saw that a player called Bojan was playing for Spain's U21 against England and I hoped he would score a couple because then, when the ad for the highlights came on, the annoucer would have to say "Don't miss the Bojan goals"...

With My Mind She Rose

2011-06-10T14:53:00.000+02:00

50. A song that you've listened to for years & have just recently begun to appreciate.

I always thought "Walking Spanish" in Tom Wait's Walking Spanish Down The Hall meant something like a "pimp roll" until I bothered to look it up. The song makes perfect sense once you know.

51. A song that you realized you've been mishearing the lyrics for years.

I think the video for The Stranglers' Golden Brown fooled me in to thinking "Mancheros" were some kind of desert race. I wasn't the only one.

I never did, though, hear "last night I wanked off some dago" much as I wanted to...

LA Noire : Some Thoughts

2011-06-08T17:50:00.001+02:00

The main thing about LA Noire is that it works. Team Bondi have succesfully crafted a game based on being a police officer in 1940's LA and managed to channel films such as The Big Sleep through to LA Confidential while doing so. The linear story-telling and acting are spot-on and the tone is as consistent as possible throughout, except for a couple of pretty major exceptions.

The two central mechanics of the game are pretty simple. One is more-or-less wandering round a specific area waiting for you controller to buzz. In point-n-click adventures, the genre LA Noire is probably closest to, this was called "pixel hunting", moving your pointer over the screen waiting for it to change to a hand. Some of the found objects are then very small puzzle in their own right which, when solved, can lead to further clues. Despite it's simplicity the animation and the voiceovers when you find a new clue really sell this. The vast majority of clues are in obvious places and if you watch your non-controlable partner he often goes to where each clue is in turn.

Once you have everything then the music stops, really, and it's time to talk to the suspects.

And here is the selling point. Rockstar/Team Bondi will tell you that they have improved facial animation enough that complex emotions can be displayed by a computer generated actor. They exaggerate. That's not to say it isn't incredibly well done, it is. The mechanic of the interview section is is thus: the interviewee talks and you have to decide whether they tell the truth or lie or you just plain doubt them. If they don't fidget, then it's probably the truth, if they do fidget then doubt them and if you've found something that just plain contradicts what they've said call them a dirty damn liar.

The "tells" are all oversold, but this game really isn't too interested in subtlety. It has a story it wants to tell and it will tell it. Halfway through the Murder section you will probably realise there's a repeated factor in all of the murders that your "best detective ever" refuses to notice.

This is interactive fiction telling, but the writer wants to have a beginning, a middle and an end and you are strapped in to this story whether you like it or not. As I said the story is well told, but you feel like a little more influence over the outcome would have been appropriate.

It also happens that LA Noire is an open-world game. Team Bondi have recreated large parts of some parts of LA. You can drive around and steal cars and find films and badges and landmarks and other make-work. LAs there and it's as pretty as any other game. It's almost entirely meaningless in terms of what the game itself is trying to do. There are eight million stories in the Naked City. Team Bondi are only telling around 25 of them with and extra 40 vignettes. The rest of LA is there to chase or be chased in. It seems wasteful, I hope they find a way to use it again.

At the end of every "Casefile" there's a big shootout. Apparently Team Bondi were more influenced by LA Confidential than Double Indemnity. Every single shootout feels out of place. They were making this great neo-noir and all of a sudden the spirit of Clint Eastwood shows up.

The shootouts are there because gamers expect them, I suppose, and, well, Bogart did shoot a few fellows in his day, but that was usually one shot, close up. The sections aren't particularly long but it feels like your reward playing a game that wants to add an emotional aspect to games is to be stuck in a particularly mediocre third person shooter.

So, not a failure, then, by any means but occasionally hobbled by, what?, a failure of nerve? Pandering to what gamers expect and will pay for rather than letting the product stand for itself? Maybe it'll be neglected now and be reappraised as a true masterpiece many years later...

You Can't Take The Sky From Me

2011-06-08T12:02:00.000+02:00

49. Your favorite TV show theme song.

This could really be two days worth "favorite TV show theme song (original)" and "favorite TV show theme song (bought)" for me. I guess I just watch that much TV...

Anyway, even now when I hear the HBO ident static sound I expect to hear "Woke Up This Morning". Incidently, Virgin Media estimate that the Alabama 3 made £2.5 Millon from that song. Imagine having a part of that, eh, say a fifth. That's half-a-million quid, right there.

Also activating the pleasure centres of my brain is the Blind Boys of Alabama's version of the Tom Waits song Way Down In The Hole. Great cover, great song, one of the very best TV shows ever made, The Wire.

Was there ever, though, such a perfect match of song and show as using Fleetwood Mac's The Chain for the BBC's Formula One coverage? That bass line somehow evoking the heat haze off the cars at the starting line and in comes the guitar and they are off! Magical.

For the original music, where to start? Doctor Who, The X-files, Buffy (or are Nerf Herder real?), Star Trek, Star Trek: TNG, Top Cat, The Muppet Show, Rhubarb and Custard, Hong Kong Phooey... I must pry myself away from YouTube!

So, I have to pick one. And it's going to have to be:

Was there any doubt?

Lose Their Taste For Kissing

2011-06-07T12:02:00.000+02:00

48. A song that you wish you could've written.

Hallelujah would be the obvious one here wouldn't it? Also just about any of the previous answers. Assuming there's not supposed to be much overlap, I'm going to go with a song I have about half a dozen versions of but never get tired of. I'm putting this version here because it was the first version I remember hearing.

Cassandra Wilson - You Don't Know What Love Is

It's a simple song, lyrically, in some ways, but with strong imagery in those simple ideas. It's a great lost love song. Something that I've tried to write with varying degrees of success in the last few years. My metier, though, is funny songs, songs about shagging and, mostly, funny songs about shagging. That YDKWLI can achieve what I haven't managed yet so clearly and brilliantly is actually very inspiring.

Isn't It Ironic

2011-06-06T15:36:00.000+02:00

I've been ploughing through Spartacus: Blood & Sand recently but the most vulgar joke I saw at the weekend was on Doctor Who...

There's A Chance I'm Gonna Screw Ya

2011-06-06T13:00:00.000+02:00

45. Your favorite song from the 00's.

Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

Just for that moment when having a Myspace page was relevant.

46. Your favorite song of this year.

Hayes Carll - Another Like You

47. The oldest song you own.

Probably some random blues song, so let this one from 1930 stand in for all of them

Bo Carter - All Round Man

Bo Carter was a master of the single entendre, so obviously is a spiritual ancestor to many of my own songs. When the Bluesberries do a version of Hesitation Blues I slip in a number of lines from this song, especially the bit about the not being the Auger man but offering to blow your hole till the Auger man comes.

I Didn't Come To Fool Ya

2011-06-03T10:20:00.000+02:00

43. Your favorite song from the 80's.

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

44. Your favorite song from the 90's.

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

I've got all the good versions of Hallelujah on this list now right?

Come Get Some

2011-06-03T09:39:00.000+02:00

Much like Lucy Lawless's nakedness in the recent Spartacus TV show, the news of a trailer for Duke Nukem Forever is both exciting and about 8 years too late.

It Was A Little Bit Frightening

2011-06-01T17:31:00.000+02:00

41. Your favorite song from the 70's.

Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting

It wasn't that frightening, it certainly wasn't very frightening, it was a little bit frightening.

I always thought this was a kind an anti-climax, though a fun one. Sort of like how The Turtles thought Elenore was "et cetera". I really should look out for more songs that stop short of breaking out the superlatives.

By the way, Douglas insists that this song isn't racist, although his defence of "some of my best friends are chinese" doesn't particularly display expert timing.

It's certainly no more racist than, say, Illegal Alien by Genesis.

Hmmm, what?

Strap Her On Again

2011-05-31T11:14:00.000+02:00

41. Your favorite song from the 60's.

Gah. Onr song from the whole of the sixties? OK, so wiki "songs of the 60s". Pick a random year, 69 too obvious, 67 will do.

Ooooh!

Frank Zappa - Brown Shoes Don't Make It

Fishy Goings On

2011-05-30T13:11:00.000+02:00

Apparently up 25% of all fish sold is "mislabeled" according to a report that The New York times would like to bring to our attention. Actually, in the article they are slightly less euphemistic in their naming and say "fraudulently identified". You can't always trust your fishmonger, I guess.

Anyway, the report is from a non-profit organisation called Oceana and is titled "Bait and Switch", which made me smile.

I Followed A Naked Body

2011-05-30T09:51:00.000+02:00

37. An essential karaoke song.

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody. You just had to be there (although the Muppet version linked to is pretty close).

38. A song that you sing really well.

Tommy Johnson - Canned Heat Blues. I sing this with The Bluesberries and I sing it fairly high. I used to have some problems with it, but I think I've just about got it now, so I'll include it here over some of the easier songs we do. I don't do all those trills Johnson does, though.

39. A song that you wish you could sing really well.

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Next

40. Your favorite song from the 50's.

Elvis Presley - That's All Right Mama. Another song the 'Berries do. At first, trying to sing it and not do an Elvis impression was difficult and there's still probably some little bits in there. But if you have to sum up a whole decade with one song then it's hard to go wrong with Presley in the 50s.

No-one Knows What It's Like

2011-05-26T18:14:00.000+02:00

36. Your least favorite cover song.

I suppose there are plenty of bad covers and, as I explained yesterday, I've probably been exposed to quite a lot of them. But I've forgotten them all, as you are supposed to do with bad music. Sometimes, though, bad music has a way of being forced upon you (feel free to make a joke about The Bluesberries here) no matter how much you try to avoid it.

So, the obvious entry here is:

Limp Bizkit - Behind Blue Eyes

If you can get through the first few seconds of this video without wanting to punch Fred Durst repeatedly in the face, then you are a better man than me. When that Tony Head does a better version than you during an episode of Buffy perhaps it's time to give up (a bit unfair as Head can sing as this slightly over-produced version of Sweet Transvestite shows).

And straddling the line of good and bad in many ways, I'd like to bring Revolting Cocks - Do Ya Think I'm Sexy to your attention.

David Simon - Saying What We Don't But Probably Should

2011-05-25T18:01:00.001+02:00

Jorn Barger had an arresting quote from David Simon today:

"My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him."

David Simon, of course, being the man behind Homicide, The Corner, The Wire, Generation Kill and, though I've not seen it, Treme. So it's definitly a valid position for him to have. Anyway I found the original piece where the quote comes from it's in The Believer and is an interview Nick Hornby did with Simon somewhere around August 2007

If I start quoting it we'll be here all day, instead you should go over there and read for yourself, or read it again if you were luck to catch it back when it was published. It's still fresh today.

Go! If only to find out why Deadwood is Shakespeare, with added cocksuckery, and The Wire is a greek tragedy.

There's Always Been Ethel

2011-05-25T14:29:00.004+02:00

34. A song that you try to get stuck in your head to replace the one that's currently stuck there.

Genesis - I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

35. Your favorite cover song.

This is a pretty over subscribed one. I discovered Cover Freak quite a while ago, and its blogroll, so I have several gigs-worth of random cover versions scattered across my harddrive.

An obvious one would be Warren Zevon's cover of Back in the High Life which takes Steve Winwood's version and makes it into a melancholy reflection on good times passed. This, though, now seems a part of a greater attempt to add gravitas to pop songs by slowing them down Travis doing Britney being a more famous one. The most recent example being the Bob Dylan style cover of Friday...

The Drive-By Truckers cover Play It All Night Long which seems like a perfect fusion of song and form, but I'm trying to limit my links to both to give the impression I have a wider range of taste than perhaps justified.

There seems to a great market for the ironic cover people —Richard Cheese, Pastel Vespa, Nouvelle Vague, etc.— doing loungey covers of hip-hop, metal or punk and I do like these but they are maybe a just a bit too arch to truly be favourites.

So I'm going to pick something that popped up on my random playlist last week and made me smile.

Zebrahead - Wannabe

Yeah a pop-punk cover of a pop song, but don't tell me you don't want to pogo about while listening to it.

I'm going to also include a link to Fall Out Boy's Roxanne cover, too, for similar reasons.

La La La

2011-05-23T15:15:00.000+02:00

31. Your class song (or what you want your class song to be).

The Internationale.

32. A song that plays to your inner hopeless-romantic.

It's a new month so I guess I can add another Zevon track, right? In that case:

Warren Zevon - Reconsider Me

This song probably doesn't support as much irony as I load it with. Because it's Zevon you know he knows it's a lost cause. This beautiful love song just too late for the one who has left. If he sings it just sweet enough maybe she'll come back.

33. A song that you can't even think of without it getting stuck in your head.

Just to annoy everyone!

Sesame Street - Mah Nà Mah Nà

Or this version...

With a close second going to:

Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head

It's The Ends of the World As We Know It

2011-05-23T09:46:00.000+02:00

Apparently I missed the end of the world this weekend. But it's OK there are plenty more to choose from.

He's Got The Fire And The Fury

2011-05-20T10:19:00.000+02:00

30. A song from a band/artist that you are planning to see in the next 6 months:

Way Down in the Hole - Blind Boys of Alabama w/Charlie Musselwhite

On 9 July the Blind Boys of Alabama are going to be at the Wien Jazz Fest along with Bettye Lavette. I hope to be in the audience.

The Bluesberries are also working on a version of this song. We hope to debut it in June at the Weyer Markt Fest along with a song of mine "Never Put Water In Another Man's Whiskey".

You Got A Lot Of Nerve

2011-05-19T12:45:00.000+02:00

So keeping up with this 365 day challenge thing is not as easy as I'd hoped plus it's all I'm doing at the moment.

I had hoped to get some actual link articles, or a review or even just a plain old rant in. But I can't seem to pluck up the energy to think thoroughly enough to do any of those any justice. Partly, this seems to be a kind of wierd internet related thing where I've usually read about something on the internet and, in order to say something about it, I've got to work through what's been said and why I feel the other parties are wrong.

I'm having this problem with Dragon Age II. It's a good game. It looks better than it's predecessor, it has more console-friendly combat —which suits me— and the story is on a fairly human level for an RPG.

It does have a lot of set re-use, often with minimal to non-exisitant redressing, but that only really became an issue for me when, due to the choices I'd made in the order I did the missions, I visted the same warehouse three times in a row. I didn't mind too much. There was plenty of story and dialogue and if the missions didn't need a unique setting then why not use the odd set again.

For some reason this issue really upsets a very vocal set of fans. In terms of enjoyment of the game it's like saying you dislike old Doctor Who because they always visited that same quarry, or the sets wobbled. These things are extratextual, in these cases, brought on by a limited budget, be it time or money.

And then there's the downloadable content...

That the freeloaders seem to have won the argument about how much to pay for music has created a very strange sense of entitlement in some people. But, enough....

28. A song you change the words to when you sing it:

I'm overlapping with the other month's stuff now, mostly because that was some random songs that I like and this is a bunch of random questions about songs, but this has to be:

I Kissed A Girl - Jill Sobule

29. A song that describes a friendship:

And the vagueness returns. A friendship of mine or any friendship? A song I like that's about friendship or a song that accurately describes a friendship. Past or present?

Anyway I'm going to be equally vague, if predictable, and say

Bob Dylan - Positivly 4th Street covered here by Lucinda Williams

With a sidenote to say that, though I detest Oasis with a fiery passion, the Manc chancers did write one of my favourite songs about a friendship, (theirs, what else did they ever write about with any purpose?) with Aquiesce.

Catchup

2011-05-17T10:09:00.000+02:00

Blogger was down some of last weekend so here's what you missed:

24. The last new song that you heard that you really liked:

Hayes Carll - She Left Me For Jesus

I've mentioned this in an earlier blog, but I was reminded since that an uncle had been on about Hayes Carll a few years previously. He was convinced that the singer's real name was Carl Hayes and he just changed the order round to be awkward. The Carll's full name is actually Joshua Hayes Carll.

25. Worst song you have ever seen performed live:

Summertime - Too many "jazz singers" to mention. I always said I should work out a Fugees style version of this so at open mike nights I could jump up on stage and start "One time. Two time. Summertime". That's as far as I got, however.

26. One of the top songs that was released the year you were born:

Hmm. Part of me wants to say Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) - Benny Hill, but though I do have a soft spot for that silliness, I'm going with Isaac Hayes - Shaft (So many good singles came out in 1971!)

27. A song you like to blast on your car stereo when it comes on:

Dustman - Happy Mondays

"Are you healthy? Well I just eat fruit
But I tell you man, it just don't suit"

Remember Where You Buried The Bone

2011-05-12T12:47:00.000+02:00

23. Song from a band or artist that you have met in person:

Doug MacLeod - (If You're Going to the) Dog House

Doug had an almost yearly gig in Steyr at the Blues Bakery and then the Unta Da Linden, he's a great story teller, singer, songwriter and guitar player. He's also a lovely and graceous man to talk to.

I Don't Want To Grow Old Gracefully

2011-05-11T11:17:00.000+02:00

22. A song from a band or artists (member(s) deceased) you would have loved to have seen:

So, I had fairly recently moved to Austria with my stack of Warren Zevon CDs and I'd found out on the Internet, still a fairly novel thing to do in 2000, that my hero was doing a small tour of England. The closest place to my mothers home was Warwick University.

Tickets and travel were arranged. I was going to see Warren Zevon. When we got to Warwick Arts Center a door had been left unattended and my mother and I snuck down a hallway to catch, through a slightly opened doorway, Zevon soundchecking. I recognized the tune at the time, and my hazy memories tell it was probably Lawyers, Guns and Money. Worried that the security men would find us and throw us out, tickets or no, we scurried back to the bar where I remember being impressed that someone had a T-shirt with Willy on the Plate printed on it and being disappointed that no such official merchandise was available.

Then came the message over the PA that the concert had been cancelled due to medical concerns. There was going to be a rescheduled concert, but I wasn't going to be in England. We got our money back and I was upset, but figured he'd be back next year.

In 2002 Warren Zevon was diagnosed with mesothelioma and he died on September 7, 2003. I never did get to see him play, though I'd glimpsed him briefly through a crack in a door.

The video below isn't from that tour, but it's a great version of one of my favourites:

Don't Give It Away

2011-05-10T15:23:00.000+02:00

21. A song from a band or artist (member(s) alive) would love to see perform in person:

The secondary question here being, I guess, then why haven't you? I did get a chance to see Jason Isbell perform in Salzburg a year or two ago and I just didn't get organized. This year he's done a tour, but nowhere near Austria on a day when I could get to go, so so maybe there's some small lack of motivation. I went to see The Drive-By Truckers in Munich after all. But right now the song I'd most like to see performed live is Outfit:

"Don't tell 'em you're bigger than Jesus..."

And It Feels Nice

2011-05-09T10:00:00.001+02:00

19. A song that you love from a band that has since broken up:

Get A Grip - Semisonic

Every band should have at least one song about wanking. That this one is so catchy helps. I'm not sure Semisonic are officially all broke up, but they've not done anything since 2001, so...

20. A song you know most or part of the choreography to:

See above.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

Another item I'm not entirely sure of, but if doing your own made up dance every time to a song counts then:

Whole Of The Moon - The Waterboys

His Hair Was Perfect

2011-05-07T21:11:00.000+02:00

18. A song you would consider part of the "soundtrack" of your life:

I'm not sure I quite understand what this means. Perhaps songs I hear in my head as I do things in slow motion? Or the songs a I put during sexy time to evoke a mood? Or maybe songs that follow you around during a wacky montage?

Of course, there was a bar I went to that everytime I turned up the barmaid would put Werewolves of London on, so I guess that fits well enough.

Dancin' Fool

2011-05-06T09:25:00.000+02:00

17. A song you remember dancing in public to:

Too many to mention. There are photos out there of me dancing on tables, fully clothed though dignity free. And, of course, there's my sexy dancing during gigs, always a fan favourite. But it has to be:

The Theme to Starsky & Hutch

It was when I was at Keele and I somehow ended up in the funk disco. There weren't many people there, but then it was a particularly large venue, and this came on. I had to get up and dance even if nobody else did.

I See Zeus

2011-05-05T15:23:00.000+02:00

16. A song you have seen performed live:

I Love Every Body - Jah Wobble

I was at Glastonbury 1994, I think, and I saw this live. I heard lots of good music, but this was the one that made me go out and buy the album...

Call It Baby

2011-05-04T11:30:00.000+02:00

15. A song your parents played on road trips when you were young:

Ry Cooder - 634 5798

This could have been any Ry Cooder song from the '70s. To the point where I'm not sure if we ever had any other tapes in the car. I think Bat Out Of Hell might have figured in at some point and, when I got a little bit older, Genesis tapes.

Ivy League Voodoo

2011-05-03T11:49:00.000+02:00

14. A song you like that's instrumental only:

Miles Davis - So What

Keeping It Going

2011-05-02T10:43:00.000+02:00

I should really do these on the day in the weekend. I have a laptop and everything. Away from work, though, I really don't like going on the Internet unless I have to. Anyway:

11. A song you indulge in shameless self pity to:

Alone In The Dark - John Hiatt
"It's a still life study of a drunken ass". Perhaps a little upbeat for true drunken introspection and sometimes more connected with Jamie Lee Curtis stripping in True Lies, but pour yourself a large whiskey, turn up the volume and turn off the lights, "it's extreme self pity".

12. A song you play when your getting ready to get your confidence up:

Wrong N***** to F*** Wit - Ice Cube
"You can new jack swing on my nuts" Ah yes, the tired old cliché. Nice white guy pumps himself up with Gangsta Rap. This track really needs the track before it, The Funeral -- "He didn't get into an excessive amount of trouble", to make it work but, goddamn, as a blast of pure, funky, hostility there's nothing quite like it.

13.A song that reminds you of a past love:

Any Bon Jovi, but Wanted Dead Or Alive in particular. For two years I had to pretend to like this big-haired boy-band. Rolling Stone said it very well indeed:

Jon Bon Jovi and his band serve up condescending sentiment, reducing every emotional statement to a barefaced cliché – either because they think that's all their audience can comprehend or because that's all they can comprehend.

All My Friends' Bands, Obviously

2011-04-29T10:45:00.000+02:00

10. A song from a band that you think should be more popular:

So, yeah, The BluesBerries, Roadzter, LemonFrenzy, Little Baby Cheeses, Beck & the Bullets, etc. should all be more popular. Past that I really don't have a clue how popular any band really is. I don't know anybody who likes the Drive-By Truckers, for example, except people who I've played them for personally, but I get the feeling that they have a sizable following in America.

Anyway, I have no idea how big Lewis Taylor was before he retired from the music but I would have liked to have heard more from him and to have more people hear him. He had a great Marvin Gaye-like falsetto and had found a modern soul setting that really suited it. Like here with this live version of his biggest hit, Lucky:

To Mark A Special Day

2011-04-29T09:29:00.000+02:00

A joke from a previous one:

On the day of the wedding, Sophie was getting dressed, surrounded by all her family, and she suddenly realised she had forgotten to get any shoes.
Panic.
Then her sister remembered that she had a pair of white shoes from her wedding so she lent them to Sophie for the day. Unfortunately they were a bit too small and by the time the festivities were over Sophie's feet were in agony.
When she and Edward withdrew to their room the only thing she could think of was getting her shoes off.
The rest of the Family crowded round the door to the bedroom and they heard roughly what they expected, grunts, straining noises and the occasional muffled scream. Eventually they heard Edward say 'God, that was tight.'
'There,' whispered the Queen. 'I told you she was a virgin.'
Then, to their surprise, they heard Edward say. 'Right. Now for the other one.'
Followed by more grunting and straining and at last Edward said.
'My God. That was even tighter.'
'That's my boy,' said the Duke. 'Once a sailor, always a sailor.'

Really, What's It To You?

2011-04-28T10:35:00.000+02:00

9. A song that if someone said they liked it, you would like them a little bit more:

John Cale - Hallelujah

It used to be any version for Hallelujah, and the Shrek came along and ruined it for everybody. Now it seems when the star of your TV series is having a moment of existential crisis, or perhaps just feeling a little sad, up pops Jeff Buckley sighing away through the montage of unhappy faces.

Anyway, this was the first version I heard of this song, on a tape version of I'm Your Fan -- a Leonard Cohen tribute album, and it's always been my favourite. Partly, I think, it's down to Cale's stubborn refusal to sing "Ya" instead of "You".

Anesthetic Education

2011-04-28T10:15:00.000+02:00

An interesting look, with fine animation, at what is wrong with our "Industrial" view of education and why ADHD isn't an epidemic or, at least, one that shouldn't be treated with pills.

Via boing boing.

An Easy One

2011-04-27T10:02:00.000+02:00

8. Your least favorite song from your favorite band:

Let Nothing Come Between You - Warren Zevon

I'm guessing it's not too popular with the rest of his fans, either as there's no YouTube video up. It does, however, appear on his "Best Of" boxset which must have been some kind of wry joke.

I Forgot The Bank Holiday

2011-04-26T09:42:00.000+02:00

6. A song from an Artist you discovered from a TV show: "Do it again - Five Times August:

Blackstreet feat Ol Dirty Bastard,Slash - Fix

Saw this on MTV, bought the album, didn't have this version of the song on. Gits.

7. A song that wrenches your heart out from sadness.
Drive-By Truckers - Space City

It Passed The Time...

2011-04-22T13:30:00.001+02:00

"It would have passed in any case."
"Yes, but not so rapidly."

Franz of the incomparable LemonFrenzy is doing a 365 song challenge thing that he found on Facebook.

Well, he's done two anyway, and I did them as well:

1. A song that reminds you of your first car:
Piece of Crap - Neil Young

2. A song that reminds you of summer:
Gridlock - Warren Zevon
(of course almost everything reminds of a Zevon song, but there you go...)

And as a bonus my third day choice:

3. A song you listened to as a kid, that you thought made you cool. Real Cool:
Mama - Genesis

Plus a little something for the weekend (there's no way I'm interrupting 48 straight hours of Dragon Age II for something so frivolous as a Blogger update, probably):

4. A song you like from a movie soundtrack:
Prince - Scandalous
Or is this inspired by? I think it does appear in the film. It's a great Prince track hidden away in an album of, by Eighties Prince standards, mostly filler.

5. A song that you quote to people:
Ain't That Pretty At All - Warren Zevon. "I'd rather feel bad than feel nothing at all".

Still Figuring Things Out

2011-04-21T16:41:00.000+02:00

Jorn Barger, the man behind Robot Wisdom, helpfully pointed out that his link blog had moved and I'd been pointing at the wrong place for quite sometime (a state I'm all too familiar with). Blogger, for some reason, doesn't like the URL, though, and won't let me add it to "Feeds I Read". The link above works and I recommend you click on it and bookmark what you find there.

Just Enough Cowbell

2011-04-20T17:59:00.002+02:00

A funky little tune from Sweden.

I first heard this through Soul Sides (way back in 2005, apparently) and had to go out and buy the album. Soul sides say that it reminds them of The Roots track Seed and, you know, he's not wrong...

It's lacking the cowbell, though. Someone should release a remix of this with the Damn! cowbell on it...

That's Told You!

2011-04-19T09:56:00.000+02:00

Closing Borders Store Tells Customers Where To Find A Restroom.

Tales Of The Obvious

2011-04-18T18:14:00.000+02:00

40% of people did not feel Britain had benefitted from immigration in any way.

The above is from a review of YouGov poll.

The article makes it obvious that this is from a poll of more context, something to do with Cameron stirring up old Tory values, but you can't help wondering if the pollster went up to the pollee "What about them immigrants, eh? What have they ever done for us".

I also hope that at least some of the 60% replied "Made my mum/my dad/me". Though this could be true for much of that 40% as I can personally vouch for...

I wonder if those 40% somehow thought of it as a zero sum game. That immigrants from all over the world have done much to enrich British life and culture, but since a Pakistani owns the shop on the corner (denying a British citizen the chance to work hard for many hours a day for not much pay and much abuse) then maybe it's a wash.

Perhaps those Doctors recruited from India to cover an English shortfall are balanced by those muslim types who just don't want to fit in.

I does make you wonder, though, what immigrants would have to do to make the 40% feel like they had contributed?

Explaining Sort Algorhythms With Hungarian Folk Dance

2011-04-18T13:09:00.000+02:00

Exactly what it sounds like...

PS. Just had two weeks holiday, if you were wondering why the blog briefly flared up and then died down again. Terrible timing on my part. The flaring should continue.

Spank Me Like You Mean It...

2011-04-01T12:24:00.000+02:00

... Two times a day.

I only know this from an album called Balling The Jack which was an attempt a bringing together a lot of bluesy music that blues purists might sniff at. Its a great compilation with some terrific music whatever the genre is called.

The Perfect Woman- Tom Ball&Kenny Sultan

2011-03-31T11:43:00.000+02:00

The BluesBerries cover this song, but this is a video of the creators playing it live. I have no idea what Mammoth's Annual Festival of Beers and Bluesapalooza is but it sounds like a great place to be!

File Under "Who Knew?"

2011-03-31T10:31:00.000+02:00

Bill Gates is ruthless, driven and competitive, says Paul Allen.

Brothers & Sisters We Got To Kick Out The Jams

2011-03-30T14:49:00.001+02:00

There are probably more cover versions of Kick Out The Jams by MC5 than MC5 ever sold copies of and just about every one has a video on YouTube...

The original had the best hair, at the very least:

Rage Against the Machine does its thing to the song. And Henry Rollins has a suitably shouty version

Monster Magnet do a straight up cover, the riff really demands that you do it exactly like this, oddly it sounds almost exactly like the Xena version (I'm not ready to do my long Xena post yet -- possibly ever --, but this was a highlight of a particularly embarassing episode, Xena had already done a musical episode, one that rivals Buffy's Once More With Feeling, but Lyre Lyre got it wrong on multiple levels including having Xena rap...)

The Presidents of the United States of America do a vaguely nerdy cover and Jeff Buckley and Evan Dando do suitably singer-songwriter covers. The Buckley version being notable for his tiny freak out at someone snapping pics at the beginning.

It's just a really cracking bit of rock'n'roll. Isn't that enough, Miss McKenzie?

Trying To Tie Everything Together

2011-03-29T13:10:00.001+02:00

Starting like a "Mothermother" the Roots get Ice Cube to revisit one of his earliest hits, Straight Outta Compton. Part of me hopes that they then showed the trailer for "Are We There Yet?" just to compare and contrast. But let's not distract too much from this blast of pure hip-hop:

Interestingly, in her cover of Straight Outta Compton, Nina Gordon doesn't shy away from any of the profanity:

You sort of want her to add some to Phil Collins' One More Night, though:

I Kissed A Girl by Jill Sobule

2011-03-28T12:36:00.000+02:00

When the Katy Perry song of the same title came out, I initially hoped it was a cover of this. It wasn't Perry seems to have gone to other things (appearing in lads mags as far as I can tell) while Jill Sobule did get to tour with Warren Zevon and Billy Bragg (though not at the same time, which would have been awesome).

There were a number of parodies of Perry's song on YouTube when it came out including the memorably (for me) vulgar "I Did[1] Your Mum". I still think it's a pity nobody did this to Sobule's song as it should have been a YouTube hit, especially the bridge where you can imagine the parodist getting more and more excited as they sing:

I did your Mum
It was so sweet
She was into doing me
I did your Mum
It won't change the world
But I'm so glad...
... I did your Mum

[1] Not the actual word. Not that I'm squeamish about swear words, I just decided to be coy here because I'm about to repeat the word a lot and I don't want to tip any censors.

DBT! DBT!

2011-03-25T09:22:00.000+01:00

Drive-by Truckers "Drag the Lake Charlie" Later.....with Jools Holland

Also from Later... is a video of Birthday Boy which I can't embed for some reason. Two good performances, though. There are some that'd tell you Later... has gone on well past its sell-by-date, but while it's still getting good bands and good performances I particularly care that it's getting a but moudly round the edges.

Never Gonna Change

An actual, sort of, video from the Truckers to support their Dirty South Tour video. This is back when they still had Jason Isbell in the band and he handles the vocals here. Isbell wrote one of my all time favourite Truckers songs called Outfit, and this is a pretty good version:

And, finally, an oddity. Patterson Hood and friends (which seems to be all the trucker 'cept Mike Cooley) doing a cover of Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight. I really wanted to like this, but it's a bit of a mess. I guess you just had to be there.

Sexy Lesbians Asshole Bleaching Petula Clark Up The Arse

2011-03-24T15:21:00.002+01:00

So, as you can probably tell from the date stamps on the posts, it has been a while. Blogger hasn't changed much, except now it's offering its own stats page. Nothing too earth shattering although one of the stats is for "all time" (back as far as March 2010, I believe) search keywords. It really sums up my posting history:

Search Keywords

roadzters 41
assholebleaching 8
paul herzberg steyr 7
sexy lesbians 7
cricket club steyr 5
looking for the next best thing meaning 5
muddy funster 4
petula clark up the arse 4
pherzb.blogspot.com 4
asshole bleaching 3

I think I may have my perfect blog post title now, the redunancy of "asshole bleaching up the arse" being particularly perfect. The rest of the blog can't possibly live up to it...

Ummm Hmmm!

2011-03-24T11:20:00.001+01:00

My blog is seventh when you search for best looking thongs on Yahoo.

This makes me happy.

Yippie Yie Ay

2011-03-24T09:22:00.002+01:00

This comes from the seemingly one-off Cowboy Rumba album. I was hoping that there'd be a video for "Feelin' No Pain" one of the greatest ever drinking songs, but Ghost Riders is a fun blast of Merengue.

Beyond Good & Evil HD for X-Box 360

2011-03-23T13:41:00.003+01:00

I played the original BG&E on my old X-Box back when it came out. The original, as you may remember, came out to good reviews and low sales. I enjoyed it at the time, feeling it was well paced and I especially liked how the bigger world would slip you into mini-games without you realising it. The characters were well written and the ecological theme neatly integrated.

Playing it again eight years leter, in this new HD version, nothing has really changed. The higher resolution graphics and improved textures only serve to make it just how you remember it. The eco-theme seems more prescient and the fact the the lead character is an adult woman with normal-sized breasts makes you wonder why there aren't more like her in video games. Did BG&E's relative financial failure give games companies an excuse to pump up breasts in games?

It's a good solid ten hours of gaming, assuming you collect every pearl and creature and beat every race (probably a bit shorter if your racing skills aren't as rusty as mine). It has oodles of character and the main characters are memorable. Andrea, who wasn't playing (but occassionally gave out sage advice -- "maybe you should drive faster"), really, really wanted Pey'j to live. It parcels out the gameplay in very satisfying ways. The world gradually gets larger and you keep getting extra abilities that you immediately have a reason to try out. Just as you think you've seen it all you are dropped in to a fun, explosion filled, race across the roof tops (my favourite set-piece, a real smile inducer).

It isn't perfect. The lips never quite match what is said. The story requires everyone to be just a little bit dense. The camera, while mostly set-up appropriately, sometimes just gets bloody minded. And the story just ends setting lots up for a trilogy that hasn't happened, yet.

It's a tenner. If you haven't played it yet, you should. If you have played it, play it again in the hopes it will give Ubisoft the incentive to finish part 2.

He Looks Young There

2011-03-23T09:16:00.001+01:00

Warren Zevon and Jackson Browne do Mohammed's Radio in 1976. My first reaction was to how young Zevon looks, but in 1976 I'd have looked five...

Chain Factor

2011-03-22T17:01:00.002+01:00

When I've got a little time on my hands and nothing to do, I tend to play Drop7 on my phone. It's addictive and only takes a couple of minutes to play a game. It's sort of a cross between Tetris and Connect4 and easier to play than describe.

It's based on an older online game called Chain Factor which is just as good if not quite as portable.

2011-03-22T15:17:00.005+01:00

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band covering Next on the Old Grey Whistle Test. I'm not sure why I haven't looked for this before because I like SAHB and Next is one of my very favourite songs. This is a great performance.

Jacques Brel's original, Au Suivant, isn't too shabby either, though the subtitles are a little dodgy according to the comments (useful comments on YouTube being pretty amazing in itself).

A Little Bit Kinky

2011-03-21T11:35:00.001+01:00

Hayes Carll - She Left Me For Jesus

So, As I Was Saying...

2011-03-21T10:57:00.004+01:00

You know, Facebook Statuses are really no substitute for a blog post.

I've missed, what, seven months of links everybody else already has and the occassional rant, but my loyal audience of spammers has, at the very least, kept my comments lively. Don't check for that now, though. I've deleted the great bulk of them.

So, Blog posts. As I understand it, the original blog idea was that it was a log of where the poster had been on the internet, a web-log if you will, though some took he mechanics of that idea and made more "diary" styled blogs possible. This very blog has multiple examples of both styles. It seems odd to me, but the link list web-log seems to have become something of a business model across the whole Internet.

Whereas before you might go to your favourite blogger and find a link that might pique your interest, you can now go to sites whose whole raison d'etre is publishing the same mildly amusing dozen links every day as about a thousand other sites. For example Cracked has a page called Linkstorm which seems to aggregate a few of these pages and skims off the more amusing ones, showing some sort of editorial judgement, if only minimal. Just about all of the links on that page go to pages that have links to other pages that have very similar lists of content.

If you haven't yet read about the "Top 10 Most Controversial Video Games", don't worry you'll get the chance to read it, or one very much like it, pretty soon.

That all said, I will be posting my "Short Shorts" posts as regularly as before and hope to get some ranting in even more shortly.

Tilt Shift London

2010-08-10T14:13:00.004+02:00

London made to look like a miniature. Can the producers at the BBCs drama unit (Sherlock, Luther & Wallender in particular, but no doubt others) have a look at this and realise that "tilt shift" is OK for fun little YouTube videos and then please stop using it?

Cricket Is A Serious Game

2010-08-10T10:06:00.002+02:00

LIMBO: A Review

2010-08-02T17:20:00.005+02:00

"Hahaha. You just got squashed."

Andrea. She doesn't always get my jokes —it's a language thing, I tell myself—, but when my onscreen avatar has a large box dropped on him she laughes like a drain. I guess among other things LIMBO is good to watch.

Games must have it down, now. A certain feeling of weight, that is. Batman: Arkham Asylum definitely felt like you were moving something like a real, large person and Assassin's Creed II has you feeling like a much more fleet and agile one.

LIMBO has you controlling the silhouette of a little boy with glowing eyes who has awoken in a forest of shades of grey and obstacles and ropes and giant spiders that are just the right size for the boy to tackle. It's a beautiful, ancient forest that flickers like an old movie and even it's horrors have a delicate allure to them.

But there's a nice weight here to the boy. His movements feel right, he moves at a slight jog and only jumps a foot or two in the air. He can't swim, but he's quite strong. Strong enough to pull helpful boxes around, anyway.

It also has any number of creepy, well animated deaths if you don't get everything just right. They are funny. If you aren't me. The games does have a fine atmosphere everything has the slightly off feeling of a dream. It's Kafkaesque, I think, though what I probably mean is that it reminds me of Orson Welles' take on The Trial.

Sound plays a very important part, too. There are clues in the noises of the game, and sometimes the action takes place off-screen, but you do hear it.

LIMBO is not particularly original. It is a puzzle-platform game. There's nothing that hasn't been done before. But LIMBO does it very, very well. It maintains a consistent atmosphere throughout and some of the later "twists" feel that much larger for the relative slightness of the earlier ones. It also doesn't outstay its welcome. You can probably finish it in a couple of hours. Those who feel that a euro an hour is right for a game will be very disappointed, but for those who will pay a premium for a finely crafted piece of art will be well rewarded by it.

If You've Just Got Over You Canabalt Addiction...

2010-07-30T14:51:00.001+02:00

...On no account do you want to play Epic Coaster. Especially as it adds things like achievements and a global highscore table...

Shocking

2010-07-16T10:52:00.003+02:00

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

No, really. I put in the text of the "A Bad Day For My Childhood" post and that's what came out. I suspect shenanigans, but what can you do?

UPDATE: Making Light suspects shenanigans, too, and tries to prove it.

Gaming News

2010-07-15T11:51:00.004+02:00

So, Ron Gilbert is starting to take over X-Box Live Arcade.

Last week it was the excellent refit of Monkey Island 2: Le Chucks Revenge. And what a refit it is! New art, new commentaries, vastly improved control scheme and classic, classic gameplay. It's not really as funny as you might remember it — the games have always been warm smile, broad humour than laugh out loud (for the most part) — and some of the puzzles verge on the obscure (especially if you aren't listening carefully for the clues, I'm not entirely sure it's obvious why you need to win the spitting competition, for an example, or why you can pick up certain animals...). Video game writing, though, doesn't get much better than this.

This week is DeathSpank which starts off loud and rather crass and I hope it continues in that vain. I've not played it enough to form firm opinions on it yet, but the art direction and the writing have a unique feel to them from the start and that warm, broad humour is here in spades.

Now if he could get Telltale Games to convert the latest Monkey Island game to the XBox Ron's canonisation would be assured.

Also, Lego Batman was fun, Shepard's new Aegis armour in Mass Effect 2 is funky, and Leliana's Song for Dragon Age: Origins is a good blast of what made DA:O fun in the first place, hopefully I will eventually have the couple of hours needed to finish it.

More Roadzters

2010-07-15T11:45:00.002+02:00

For the many Roadzters fans out there wondering when The Roadzters are they going to drop (that's the hip term these days, right?) their next youtube joint (mmm-hmm) here it is:

Homeopaths Get Taste Of Own Medicine

2010-07-02T13:50:00.002+02:00

I guess there's some good in everything. An article in the Telegraph looking at a recent vote by doctors to cut homeopathy funding concludes:

And really, homeopaths shouldn’t be too disappointed. In fact, they should be grateful. After all, by their own logic, the less funding they get, the more effective it will be.

A Bad Day For My Childhood

2010-07-01T10:49:00.002+02:00

I just found out that Johnny Ball, who was something of a hero of mine when I was growing up, is a Climate Change Denier. It's all down to spider farts, or something.

It is a little sad that he was booed off the stage by those who were there to hear it, though there is comedy value in the fact that contrarians can use this to show just how close minded scientists and "liberal atheists" are. Why it's almost like they are religious zealots or something. Brendan O'Neill[1], over at the deeply contrarian Spiked mag, has just such a rant handy. That is if you can get past his ultra-smug mug pic at the top of the piece...

The new collective of liberal atheists, of agitated ‘rationalists’, of Keepers Of The Scientific Truth As Revealed Unto Them By Richard Dawkins, can tolerate nothing so intolerable as someone taking the piss out of scientific theories about climate change.

You can tell by the inappropriate capitalisation that he is being satirical and by the arch use of "Unto" he's making a point about belief.

Atheism and science being relatively large churches, it's unsurprisingly easy to find disappointing people among the godless and the supposedly-rational.

The opposite of Atheism is, of course Theism, and most opinion-piece writers would, I hope, baulk at making general comments about Theists. A belief in God, god or gods tells you virtually nothing else about a person.

O'Neill here is hoping that by appending "liberal" to atheist he's narrowing the field. There are atheists, many of them good people, you see, but it's the "liberal" atheists you have to watch out for. Perhaps he could have narrowed it down to "muesli-eating, non smoking, yoga practising, Guardian reading, theatre loving, Volvo driving, liberal" atheists but I'm hoping his editor would have called him on that.

This is all to point up the irony. The liberals aren't allowing free-speech and the men of science aren't rational. How can we expect the other side to be any better?

Free speech doesn't mean having to listen to rubbish, though. And Science doesn't mean having to rehash all the arguments because someone wishes to. Climate change is well accepted now, to change people's opinions you have to do more than hand wave over some spider farts. It's not that they don't want to hear, it's that they have heard it. Many times. It wasn't right the last time and it won't be right now, almost the definition of a false hypothesis. Free speech isn't meant to weaken debate. It's meant to enhance it, at certain times having an opinion is enough (or handy access to Google, it's almost the same thing nowadays) but to change rational people's minds you need evidence.

It does seem, though, that climate change is leading to larger spiders, so Johnny Ball may actually be on to something.

[1] His blogspot url used to be boneill.blogspot.com and I can't help but think of him as "bone ill" for no good reason.

Congratulations To Eamon & Karin

2010-06-10T15:51:00.001+02:00

This is late because I was ill. Yes, as always, it's all about me. I even get a mention in the news report.

Totally Old Skool Man

2010-06-10T09:57:00.002+02:00

Ice Cube and The Roots drop "Straight Outta Compton" at Late Night.

This is just a blast, if you have ever felt a nostalgic pang for 80's hip-hop this will make you grin like a mother-mother.

P-p-pick Up A Penguin

2010-06-02T11:40:00.002+02:00

I'm not exactly sure if the above is a real product or not. But it sure is cute and I would definitely buy one.

It's related to a bunch of redesigned Penguin book covers created by Amy Fleisher that are equally fun.

On Writing Near Future SF

2010-05-25T12:48:00.002+02:00

I think you can paraphrase this blog from Charlie Stross as: Writing Near-Future Science Fiction is bloody hard because the near future can be so bloody unpredictable.

Why People Are Wrong

2010-05-17T17:08:00.003+02:00

A Visual Study Guide to Cognitive Biases

Cognitive biases are psychological tendencies that cause the human brain to draw incorrect conclusions.

I shall be printing this out and commiting it all to memory just to be even more aggravating when you are arguing with me...

Ah, Dunning-Kruger where would my superiority be without you?

Via Boing Boing

Update: Edited to correct a spelling mistake. Obviously I think my spelling is much better than it is and didn't bother to proof-read my article.

Chevrolet performed by the Roadzters

2010-05-04T09:33:00.002+02:00

One of my brother's many and varied bands have got a new video on youtube. I like it and I think you will too.

Ps. Word has it that my bad Losenstein gig produced some very good photos. More news when I have it!

Fans?

2010-05-03T09:42:00.002+02:00

There's probably a law somewhere. But I've found my love of something can find it difficult to survive meeting other fans of that something.

A case in point is new Who. Thanks to finally embracing torrents I can enjoy Doctor Who the way it's meant to be enjoyed, in weekly installments. I feel that this has been a great start to a new season and Matt Smith already seems very comfortable with the role. Possibly thanks to some great writing and plotting. The stories have been brisk and exciting while leaving plenty of room for character development. And yet...

And yet if you pop over to SFX you'll find what looks to be a totally disgruntled bunch. It's been said that this last two-parter is the Aliens to Blink's Alien. It even steals the structure, long slow set-up and then sprint to the denoument. Where before you had a small number of statues against unarmed and inexperienced kids now you have a large number against well armed "clerics". Apparently this has defanged them.

I'm not sure whether these people should grow up or give in to their inner child, because I found the whole thing genuinely tense from start to finish. This might be because I was watching the story being told rather than trying to find inconsistencies in the behaviour of a bunch of made up creatures.

Bigotry

2010-04-29T18:19:00.002+02:00

Gillian Duffy is a bigot. It's probably going to be the most truthful statement from Brown in this campaign and he's being vilified for it.

Of course the Labour party was built on exactly that sort of bigot. But, you know, we've always looked away and mumbled something about it being for the greater good. Every so often a Julian Baggini will show up in Rotherham, or somewhere very much like it, and attempt to explain away racism in Labour industrial heartlands and, with some hand waving, insult everybody's intelligence in the process.

There's no apologies for it or any disembling you can do to get round it. The same sort of self-interest that has someone voting for Labour, that is a belief that the Labour of old that had some interest in protecting the working man from the machinations of capitalism still has some vestges in the new party, is the sort of self-interest that spills into lazy racism and quite a few other "isms" too.

What these bigots aren't, though, is what's wrong with Labour. What's wrong with Labour is that it has forgot how to keep these bigots happy while actively seeking to change society for the better, Labour hasn't bothered to do any of that in years. Instead it has been trying to keep businesses happy while taking away the rights of the voters bit by bit.

Videogames ... Art

2010-04-28T12:25:00.002+02:00

I don't have anything particularly coherent to say on the "are video games art?" thing that Roger Ebert launched on an unsuspecting internet recently.

Games are made by artists. Certain levels of games are certainly artful, just as individual chess pieces can be works of art. Images of (sometimes imaginary) games decontextualised from the game are art.

It seems to me that a lot of games that are mentioned as art are art only when the user stops interacting with them (Knight of the Old Republic has a fabulous twist that comes in a cut-scene, for an example).

One reviewer, sorry I can't find this, of Lego Star Wars mentioned that he'd played it co-op with a friend and right at the very end the friends had to turn on each other to finish the game. He reckoned this act had more more emotional resonance than the whole prequel trilogy. He may well be right. No doubt Ebert would say "Ah but is it art?" as if he was the devil in the Conundrum of the Workshops. Is Kipling art? Do I like Kipling? If Orson Welles is the one being Kipled then: yes and yes!

Anyway, Bookslut claims to have found a confluence, or perhaps a slight bumping together in Machinima Poetry. To be honest, the example given here does't work, it's three mildy related things shown together in the hope that someone will find the creator "deep" or "soulful" or something. But the page promises more and the examples might get better...

Walter's Gallery

2010-04-20T11:31:00.001+02:00

Down The Pan

2010-04-19T14:14:00.002+02:00

The Daily Torygraph headlines a story about India thusly: India has more mobile phones than toilets: UN report

The report actually says only one third of the population of India has access to proper sanitation, which is entirely different.

Anyway, if we take the headline at face value and ponder the fact that, according to a Wikipedia page, The UK has 75 million phones for 61 million people I would hazard that in the UK there are more toilets than phones, too.

Low Brow

2010-04-01T16:26:00.002+02:00

E-readers[1] are feeding a rise in people reading Mills & Boon, apparently.

Looking at any download chart would probably enable you to draw similar conclussions about people's taste in public and what they really like.

I'm reminded of a letter in a recent issue of Four Four Two wherein a bloke claimed that, because his local team were in a very low division and, anyway, his country's level of football wasn't that great, he could support whoever he wanted. That summary probably has him protesting just a little too much but you get the general idea. Anyway giving himself the freedom to choose to support any team in the world guess who he chose?

Close enough. It was, in fact, Barcelona. Further justification being that, if you are going to watch football, it better be at the highest level.

He was proud enough of his choice, and justification, to write in to a football mag about it. He had the whole of football in front of him. He could have chosen plucky, obscure teams with a rich a varied history. He could have picked, say, Donny Rovers. Or Vorwärts Steyr. Or gone with something like St Pauli or Hibs or Nottingham Forest. He could have got in touch with local fans and turned up at matches and been welcomed as a foreign guest, perhaps. But no.

It's easier to watch Barca as they are good, they are on telly quite a bit, especially with the Champions League, and they have players who you've heard of. Actually, now I've said it, I might support them myself....

[1] Not to get all curmudgeonly and philistine on you but eDisplayer, surely? The person is the reader.

Truth In Humour

2010-04-01T12:09:00.004+02:00

If the voters really are fed up with New Labour and believe that the Tories are a viable alternative, don't you wish Labour's admen had the balls to do The Grauniads april fool's version:

It's no "San Serif", but it made me smile...

Also worthy of a mention is Charlie Stross whose deadpan style had me going until about half way through. Looking at the comments, I wasn't the only one.

Damn It, Mamet

2010-03-26T13:26:00.002+01:00

I liked The Unit. It was Boys Own stuff you could watch because there was always a chance that David Mamet had written it. A memo from Mamet to the writers of The Unit has been found recently and it is well worth reading, as it is Screenwriting for Beginners but excellently expressed (except for the all caps thing and some dodgy proofreading).

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

Visions Of Lesbians

2010-03-17T13:56:00.004+01:00

Boing Boing has a small article on how the Florida Family Council used a pic of a lesbian couple as a scare tactic. The FFC thinks that the couple on the left is what a lesbian couple look like. The couple on the right is who they were actually talking about:

The picture below is what you get when you put "lesbians" into a Google image search:

I'm sure this says something. But I'm not sure what. I'll be in my bunk.