The importance of artwork

Watching BBC Four's Hotel California: LA from the Byrds to the Eagles, there was a nice sound bite from Henry Diltz, the photographer who shot the cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash's self-titled first album. The quote struck me as it really illustrates the importance of an album's artwork, and also the fact that artwork was much more important back in the days of vinyl records. You wouldn't ever really hear someone say this about a CD, and much less about a digital download.

"People say 'I don't know how many hours I stared at that picture' ya know. I had a musician from England once told me, he said 'You know we used to sit there in England and look at that Crosby, Stills and Nash cover and say what is it like to be there in California? And just stare at that thing while the music played.'"

Review of Madness album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate

My review of The Liberty of Norton Folgate got posted at Punknews.org.

I also had my review of Misery Signals' gig at Corporation published on the same site last year.

Brian Wilson Live in London

Carrying on a theme from my last post, BBC Four recently broadcast Pet Sounds: Brian Wilson Live in London, a performance of Pet Sounds in its entirety recorded in 2004. Not sure what took the BBC so long to show this on TV, but it's great to see the album performed with a full band and a bit of a contemporary twist. Wilson's sound bites in between each song are priceless as well, and really typify the whole mood of Pet Sounds, showing this iconic, young-boy-in-love concept album was really written from the heart. The show is available for a few more days on iPlayer.

There are also a couple of other related programmes available on iPlayer which I haven't watched yet but look interesting. First, long-running BBC Four series Legends has a new episode called "Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy". And after that I have something called Hotel California: LA from the Byrds to the Eagles lined up. You can't beat the BBC for quality programming.

Beach Boys' and Ramones' influence on SpongeBob

I remember going to see The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie a few years ago when it came out at the cinema, and it struck me how many great songs there were in the movie. A song called "The Best Day Ever" by SpongeBob & The Hi-Seas (sung by SpongeBob's voice actor Tom Kenny) is one of them, and listening back to it recently I realised how much it sounded like the whole of Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. So doing a bit of research I found out that the song was co-written and produced by Andy Paley, someone who has indeed worked with Brian Wilson in the past, and you can definitely see Wilson's influence in this song.



After being released on the movie soundtrack, the track also became part of another SpongeBob release, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Best Day Ever, and Brian Wilson himself was actually involved in this album, recording all the backing vocals on a track called "Doin’ the Krabby Patty". Paley phoned him up to take part and he apparently agreed because he has two daughters who are big SpongeBob fans, so Tom Kenny went to pick him up in his car.

Tommy Ramone shows up on the album as well, playing drums on a Ramonescore track called "Ridin' The Hook". Amazing.

My top 100 songs in iTunes by play count

Click for large

A few surprises in here. More Arctic Monkeys and Pulley than I thought there would be, but that's never a bad thing.

Review of Hysterics by Rolo Tomassi

Here's an unpublished review for Rolo Tomassi's Hysterics album released in September 2008. I wrote this about a year ago but it never got used.

"I've seen Rolo Tomassi twice in their, and my hometown of Sheffield, UK, both times supporting HORSE the band on one of their wild gallops across the world. Maybe the fact that both bands have synth players landed Rolo Tomassi the support slot in the first place, but after witnessing them the first time around HORSE will have made sure to book Rolo Tomassi again - this band have an amazing live show. When you first see cute female vocalist Eva Spence tiptoe onto the stage you're not at all ready for the explosive screams and sounds that soon burst forth. At first you'll be shocked, then you'll be drawn in, as Rolo Tomassi tear through a set of dynamically diverse and unpredictable pieces, some long, some short, but entertaining throughout.

I once heard an interviewer describe this band as "Too metal for the indie kids, but too indie for the metal kids", and that's as good an indicator as any of where this band's sound lies. Part abrasive screaming, part complex and experimental, part Nintendo-styled synth, Rolo Tomassi have their own way of playing music. Thus the band have created quite a stir, at least in the UK scene, not at all hindered by the novelty of having a female vocalist who looks like someone out of a shampoo advert.

So their debut album, Hysterics begins with "Oh, Hello Ghost", a great first track, opening the album with an ominous electronic intro, then catching you off-guard, lunging early into a fierce and precise riff section, the band suddenly jolting into life. Things segue into tracks two and three, the band really starting to hit their stride as they lead into "Abraxas", the closest thing you'll find to a single on the album.

Next we hit the middle section of Hysterics, where Rolo Tomassi continue to mash up moods and styles you wouldn't necessarily put together, showing that that first few tracks weren't just some horrible production job gone wrong. By this point you'll have learned not to try and anticipate what's coming next, just accept and enjoy.

Aside from some of the synth sections and accompanying effects, Hysterics is a fairly simple sounding recording for the most part, the band themselves creating a great dynamic between quiet and loud throughout the album. Also, each member of Rolo Tomassi has their own distinct voice here, everyone showing some musicianship without sacrificing coherence.

However, while at points the album soars with big, repeating slabs of guitar and spiralling synth lines such as those in "Abraxas" and "Scabs", at other times things become slightly slow and unmemorable. Yes, while these sections are probably needed to contrast with and emphasise the more aggressive parts of this album, it's sometimes easy to lose interest, so Hysterics definitely loses a bit of steam towards the end, with a whole track of rather mundane noise in "Everything Went Grey". But we finish up with "Fantasia", which clocks in at over 14 minutes and showcases everything the band are good at. In some ways it feels like the whole album is building up to this final showpiece, which ends with a giant trademark Rolo Tomassi progression and wraps things up nicely.

All in all, Rolo Tomassi have managed to produce a very good first album which belies their youth, although the album does fall slightly flat in some parts, where things slow down just a bit too much, or where the jazzy experimentation starts to get a bit boring. I feel the band are best when spitting out sharp bursts of noise or throwing up massive, swirling riffs which you never really want to end. But it's hard to sustain such energy over the course of a entire album. Or maybe the interviewer's quote which I mentioned earlier is true, and the band are stretching themselves too far across a massive gap in the musical spectrum. But then again, that's what makes this band interesting, and will probably propel them to greater success and recognition in the future. Hysterics is highly original and does shine very brightly at times and is worth checking out if you like music that messes with your head a little bit."

Hearing a familiar song with completely different vocals

I just heard a track called There, Now I've Said It by Further Seems Forever. It's a track from the band's greatest hits album, Hope This Finds You Well and was originally an unreleased outtake from FSF's second album, How To Start A Fire. What's interesting is that the music is identical to a track called Bleed from the band's third album, Hide Nothing, but the vocals are completely different. In fact, the singer is different as well, as Further Seems Forever had a different vocalist on each of their three albums.

Both are great tracks, and There, Now I've Said It should have been included on How To Start A Fire in my opinion, but I guess the band thought it was too good a song to waste and Jon Bunch rewrote the vocals when he recorded Hide Nothing.

I can't decide which one's better, but they're both amazing, and makes me remember how great this band were. Glad I got to see them at Corporation with Bunch on vocals before they split up.

Rage Against The Machine at Christmas no. 1 2009

Rage Against The Machine taking the Christmas no. 1 spot with their track Killing In The Name this year is one of the greatest news stories ever written. A cover of a Disney-approved slow ballad, sung by the winner of a TV talent show vs. a profanity-ridden manifesto on anti-authoritarianism written by a political rap metal band in the slums of LA. I've been watching this campaign and the buzz surrounding it intently since first hearing about it, and I jumped out of my chair and air guitar-ed around the room this evening when we found out that the band had reached number 1.

I'm a big fan of RATM. I've written about them a few times on this blog before, and I got to see the band perform last year at Leeds Festival. RATM's drummer, Brad Wilk, has been quite an influence on my personal drumming style, and the band's self-titled album, which contains Killing In The Name is one of my all-time favourite albums (so I already own the track in question on CD, but I bought the track through iTunes to participate and contribute to this great campaign). I wouldn't call myself political, but listening to RATM definitely made me more aware of the social and political issues our generation has grown up with and is still facing now. And musically, the band were, at their peak, highly original and innovative.

I think there are three levels of positives we can take from RATM's chart success. First of all, it's highly novel and quite hilarious that 1992's Killing In The Name, possibly one of the most offensive and un-mainstream songs every recorded, has reached the top of the charts in the UK at Christmas. And that the band who recorded this song is Rage Against The Machine, an openly anti-establishment band who sound nothing like the other 39 songs in the top 40 right now. This is a song that all fans of rock music know, due to its use of the F-word 17 times and its strong anti-authoritarian message. It embodies RATM's message in 5 minutes of rap, metal and funk.

One of the most interesting aspects of this whole campaign has been RATM being covered by the media over the past week. For most UK citizens these four guys are just some rock band who have spoilt the party this week by preventing X Factor winner, Joe McElderry from reaching the top spot at Christmas. But I've been getting quite a kick out of seeing one of my favourite bands covered and handled by the British media, as their success has become the main talking point of the week throughout the nation. One of the highlights of my week was RATM's appearance on BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday morning when they were invited to perform via live link on the breakfast show. I would have never expected 5 Live to allow the band on their show - for one, 5 Live isn't a music radio station, and they should have known better than to ask a band as rebellious and unpredictable as RATM to perform for their listeners. The band had been asked to perform a censored version of their track, but went ahead with the album version, repeating the infamous F-word line four times before the transmission was cut. I've been pleased though that the BBC haven't avoided the band because of their political nature, as some big corporations might (although some might say the BBC were glad that RATM displaced a product of a very successful ITV show).

The second level of positives I'm taking from this relates to the musical nature of RATM. I'm a big fan of rock music, but pop music not so much. I mean, some pop music is musically OK, but the issues here run a bit deeper than that. Rock music has typically always been a rebellious, explosive form of music and has never been truly mainstream during recent times. Pop music represents the music of the mainstream and so there's a big dichotomy between the two. I don't listen to the charts or watch X Factor, or even take an interest in such things because they are so far removed from what I feel music is, and how it's a part of my life. So this is the first time I and many others all over the UK will have taken an interest in the charts in years, because, usually, it just doesn't represent us. And so it feels great to "take over" something as mainstream as the pop charts with a rebellious rock song and triumph over expectations, even if it's just for one week. In fact, I wouldn't want bands like RATM to become mainstream, because that would take away the alternative and subversive aesthetic attached to rock music.

(RATM broke two records with this week's success (first single ever to reach the top of the charts on download sales alone, and biggest download sales total in a first week ever), and it's interesting to note that these records were broken by a rock band, rather than the usual acts who make up the top 40 every Sunday)

The third, and possibly most important, set of positives to take from this experience relates to the way that this whole effort was so grassroots and anti-authority, but gathered a group of music fans together to topple the product of a TV show which had attracted close to 20 million viewers. This campaign really embodied the spirit of RATM, and I wonder if it would have been possible had it been any other band. This whole affair could be the most important legacy the band leaves, and is a concrete example of the power of the people, as it has really stirred a rebel passion within the UK, and the belief that large groups of people can make a difference. If our generation can do something as trivial as get RATM to the Christmas no. 1, what power do we have to make other kinds of political and social changes in our society?

Rage Against The Machine aren't a perfect band. I do have my own questions about some of their choices in the past, such as their decision to sign to the major label Sony, but I think they have helped create one of the most interesting news stories of recent times, and certainly something I'll never forget. I'm looking forward to hearing about details of the band fulfilling their promise of coming to play a show in the UK, now that they've reached number 1. A whole tour would be better, as I imagine it would be extremely hard to get tickets for just one show, now that the band have had a resurgence in popularity, and gained many new fans no doubt. I found it interesting though when Tom Morello said in an interview that the UK was the first place that RATM really started to "gain friction" as a band. Maybe the British people do have a natural rebellious nature - I can't imagine too many other nations where an upset like this might happen. The widespread popularity of punk in the 1970s also springs to mind, and this whole campaign has given me positivity and hope in some way for the future of the UK.

Chiptune Alliance Tour 2008

Last night, my band, Spheres of Chaos played at the Sheffield date of the Chiptune Alliance Tour 2008, and it was so much fun, probably the best gig we've played thus far as a band. The other artists on the bill were Firebrand Boy, syphus, Random and Sabrepulse, all of whom were top guys.

We had loads of people turn up, and it was just great to see so many quality chiptune acts in one place. Everyone was so into the music and there was such a great vibe going on. Things are really taking off with VGM and chiptune in the UK, changing from something that was just a load of people on the internet into awesome events like this. There were a couple of people filming the whole thing too, with one guy planning to put a documentary of the tour together, so I'm gonna try and put some video footage up in the Gamewave Podcast feed at some point.

Anamanaguchi were meant to be playing on the night too, but they ended up getting deported again! I hear their new album's nearly ready for release though, which should be very cool.

Again, I've uploaded some photos of the night (mainly SoC) up onto Facebook.

Rage Against the Machine at Leeds Festival

So yesterday I went to the 2nd day of Leeds Festival 2008. I'd been looking forward to this ever since I bought my ticket 3 months ago, mainly because because I would be seeing Rage Against the Machine!

We started off the day by catching a coach from Sheffield to Leeds at around 10am, passing the Tinsley cooling towers which would be knocked down at 3am the next morning. We arrived at the bus station in Leeds about an hour later and then caught a shuttle bus to the festival site, where we showed our tickets and got our wristbands before heading towards the main festival area. We had to get rid of all our drinks before we went in though, which sucked because water was £2.20 a bottle(!) and I got abnormally thirsty later on.

As we made our way over to the main stage I was surprised by the sheer scale of this event. There were so many people everywhere, but we managed to locate some of our other friends who were there all weekend while Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly was playing. Not my kinda thing really, but he was OK actually. Next up was Taking Back Sunday who I wanted to see, so we moved nearer to the stage. They were good, playing some of my favourite songs of theirs. After that was Dizzee Rascal, and the main stage suddenly got really busy. We didn't want to watch him though, so we moved back toward the food stands and made our plans for achieving the best possible position to watch Rage. After much debating we decided to go down to the front of the main stage fairly early on, but not before we'd had a bit of a wander. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to see Goldfinger and Tiger Army who were both playing on the punk stage, but we couldn't actually figure out where that was. So after grabbing some (very expensive) vegan fast food we headed back over towards the main stage just as Serj Tankian was finishing up. His music is even more ethnically-inspired than System of a Down, and it sounded kinda freaky to my ears, but cool nonetheless.

As Serj finished we made use of the temporary movement of the crowd, and followed a slipstream to the front of the stage. I was pretty pleased with how easy that had been, but now we had to stand through 4 bands we didn't necessarily want to see without needing to use the toilet or eat/drink.

But Biffy Clyro were good actually, even though I only knew one song. Next was The Enemy who were OK, but after that it was The Fratellis who weren't very good at all and I only knew one of their songs too - that one that goes "da, da da da, da da da, da da da da da da da". Apparently that was the last time they'll ever play that one live as well - they probably got tired of people only wanting to see them for that one song. But they didn't look very interested throughout their set, and neither did the crowd. In fact, I was surprised by the lack of crowd interaction from all the bands we saw, even Rage Against the Machine. It always makes things a bit more interesting and involving when bands say something in between songs.

Next up were Queens of the Stone Age, and up until this point it seemed like people had been moving in and out of the crowd just to see one band, but by now it was getting dark and the crowd was pretty much packed in, to the point where you couldn't really enter or leave.

There had been pits and crowd surfing up until now, but nothing too bad. But when QotSA came on they started with No One Knows and we all went crazy. But it's so weird when there are thousands of people in one area all trying to move or dance. The crowd swayed in waves, and you had no choice but to sway along, although at times it felt like you were about to fall over and get crushed by everyone. I'd been at shows in clubs where this had happened, but nothing quite on the scale of this before. Fortunately just about everyone managed to stay on their feet, although some people began to push their way out as it just got a bit too much.

To be honest, the rest of the QotSA's set bored me. I know they're meant to be stoner rock or whatever, but I didn't realise how monotonous they could be. And being crushed to the point of not being able to breath properly, as well as having endured the heat, being really thirsty and feeling kinda tired from standing up for hours on end sent me into a zoned-out state where I stopped paying attention. I think I might have concentrated and enjoyed it more if I'd been in a club and had some space and a drink in my hand.

Eventually QotSA finished and Rage were the next band up - we'd made it! As we waited for them to come on we moved back from the front a bit so that we'd have a more stable place to stand, and this proved to be a good idea.

Rage were scheduled to come on at 9:30, but they were about 20 minutes late coming out in the end. Everyone forgot that though as Tom Morello started with the opening riff to Testify, and when the drums kicked in everyone just went wild. After that was Bulls On Parade, and everyone was still going crazy. I'd personally been building up to this show for a while, and all the previous bands that day had been building up to this too - it was a really great feeling being part of this show.

After People Of The Sun things calmed down a bit, but then something weird happened. Halfway through Bombtrack the drums stopped, then someone came on stage and told the rest of the band to stop. Apparently things were looking kinda dangerous down at the front and Zach asked everyone to move back so that people weren't gonna get crushed. This was good to see and a lot of people applauded. The band then finished off Bombtrack though and played through the rest of their set - all classics. Again, it would have been nice to have a bit more crowd interaction, and every song was played at the same or slower speed than the recorded versions, which is odd for a live show, but nothing could spoil seeing this band live. It's just something I thought would never happen, but it did, and it was awesome. And that's all there is to it. They finished with Killing In The Name, applauded the crowd, linked arms and left the stage. Amazing.

The fun wasn't over yet though. Everybody started to leave the main stage, and I took out my phone to text people to find out where we were meeting (we'd lost each other in the crowd). However, halfway through writing the text message my phone ran out of battery! Now I had no way of getting in touch with everyone (although I probably should have used my head and looked for the massive flag we'd been waving all day). Anyway, I made my way back toward the shuttle buses hoping to catch the guys in that area, but after not finding them I decided to take the bus on my own rather than risk being stuck at the site overnight. After that I managed to get the last coach home to from the bus station and then get a taxi, arriving home at 2:45am.

It turns out the guys were all still waiting for me in front of the stage wondering what had happened to me. They managed to catch the last shuttle bus back, but there were no coaches from Leeds to Sheffield until about 5am. I felt pretty bad for them when I found out today, but it's good to know they were concerned over where I was!

So in the end I didn't get to see all the bands I wanted to, but seeing Rage Against the Machine was mind-blowing and something I'll always remember.

Here's the full setlist and an article about the Rage show from the NME website, and I've uploaded some photos I managed to take to Facebook.

Leeds Festival! Wooo!

I'm going to Leeds Festival on Saturday and it's gonna be awesome. I wanna see Goldfinger, Taking Back Sunday, Anti-Flag, Tiger Army and most importantly, Rage Against The Machine. I also wanna see Less Than Jake, but I think they're gonna be on at the same time as RATM. Can't wait though! I'll try and get some photos too.

My reaction to Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

I bought the DVD ages ago, but the other night I got round to watching Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. This one is different to the live-action Street Fighter film released in the same year (1994), which I haven't seen, but I'm informed the animated film is much better. I was actually hoping for the film to be viewable in Japanese for a bit of language practice, but there was no option for that, so I watched it in English.

The movie centres around the characters of Ken and Ryu, but more so Ryu, who is wandering the globe in search of worthy opponents to spar with. However, Ryu is being trailed by the Shadowlaw, a crime organisation run by Bison, who wants to capture Ryu and turn him into a Shadowlaw henchman. The storyline's pretty predictable overall, but all the other main characters from the games make an appearance, leading to some interesting fight scenes. Some characters play larger roles than others though - I was disappointed to see that my childhood character of choice, Dhalsim was hardly involved in the film at all.

The animation quality varied throughout, but the film looked fairly good for the most part. And the soundtrack was interesting, composed mainly of hard rock/grunge type stuff, some of the tracks being supplied by bands such as Korn and Alice in Chains - I guess that's what was in fashion at the time. I was also surprised to hear the DVD menu audio was all songs by The Mad Capsule Markets.

I get the impression this was a pretty big film when it was originally released, probably more so in Japan than in the West. In fact, some of the new characters and storylines from the film eventually made their way into the Street Fighter games, and I'd recommend this film for anyone who's a fan of the games. It's nothing amazing, and a lot like most other anime action films, but it's still enjoyable to see all the characters from the games duking it out and stuff.

I really wanna play some Street Fighter II now actually - hado-ken!

One night in Manchester

Last night was pretty fun - me and my mate went to Manchester to see Big D and the Kids Table, Sonic Boom Six and Random Hand at the Manchester Academy.

We caught the train from Sheffield at around 6pm and arrived in Manchester about an hour later. I didn't realise until I arrived, but I'd never actually been to Manchester before, which is kinda strange considering how big a city it is and how close it is to Sheffield. I'd also forgotten that the Champions League final was on, and Manchester United were playing in it.

We left the train station and kinda just guessed our way towards the Academy. It took about half an hour to get there, and the streets were pretty busy because of the football.

Manchester is quite a nice place, or at least the parts we went through, and everything's bigger than Sheffield.

The academy was inside the Manchester University students' union, and it felt a bit odd being in another university's union, but again, it was a nice place. We found the room where the gig was and met up with a couple of friends who go to Manchester uni.

I'd seen all the bands before, but it was a good show. Random Hand were really energetic and fun, and Sonic Boom Six were pretty lively as well, but Big D were the best band of the night for me. They didn't play some of my favourite songs though, sticking to their more recent stuff.

While we were inside we discovered Manchester United had actually won the match, which we were glad about, and as we left the gig the roads were full of people driving along, beeping their horns and waving flags.

On the way to the gig someone had handed us a flyer for an after-party, and our friends and the bands were going so we decided to go too and catch a later train. It was like a pop punk night and the drinks were cheap, so we ended up having a good time.

Just as we were leaving we had a quick chat with the bassist and drummer from Big D. I told them to play some of their older stuff at shows, and that they should come to Sheffield next time, but the bassist said they had got in a fight or something last time they did. I also asked where the band name had originally come from, as I'd heard one theory before, but wasn't sure how true it was.

If I remember right, the bassist said that one of the singer's friends had suggested it as a name after hearing the phrase on a TV advert (although the bassist wasn't sure how true that was). Then when the band formed and couldn't think of another name, they went with Big D and the Kids Table. So now you know!

After that we walked back to the train station, but had an hour to wait before our 3:30 train, so we went and got some food at a nearby chip shop that was still open. There were some drunk Man Utd fans there who had obviously had a sauce fight, as they and the walls were covered in brown sauce and ketchup, and the owner got quite annoyed and tried to throw them out. It was pretty funny.

After eating we went and waited at the train station. Our train came, and I tried to get some sleep on the way back, but this other passenger was being noisy and kept waking me up. The seats were really uncomfortable too.

There was a bit of a delay at one of the stops, and so we got back to Sheffield at about 5am and walked home.

All in all, although at times kinda odd, it was a really fun night. I'd probably go back to Manchester too - I really like the place.

Libraries and horses

Just finished a 10 hour stint at the library working on my website for Web Journalism. Life is pretty sucky right now. My last week at uni starts tomorrow, then I have exams to revise for. But everything should be over in under a month.

I think the best part of this week was going to see HORSE the band at Corporation. They're really fun live, and I got to speak with the synth player, Eric afterwards (pictured below). I gave him my band's demo. Maybe he'll listen to it. Also, a band called rolo tomassi were supporting. I saw them last time I went to see HORSE too, but they'd improved since then, and I really enjoyed their set. Spoke to the guitarist a bit after.

Reviews

My band, Spheres of Chaos got mentions in two Sheffield music magazines this month. The first is in COMA Magazine. They reviewed our new EP, Stratospheria, and as I don't have a scanner handy, I'll type up what they said:

"Bit annoyed that once again the only way to find out what's on this disc is to access the bands website. I refuse to do so and have no idea what these tracks are called, but it's great. Progressive rock has returned with a big bag of sugar poured over it. I feel like I'm listening to Camel for the first time with a bit of the better guitar bits from Pink Floyd etc etc etc. It's nice, it's really nice and a good selection to play when you can't be bothered with words and just want the waves to crash through you and the ground to melt between your toes."

I really like that. Especially the comparison to Pink Floyd! But maybe I should have written the track names on the disc I sent...

The second was in Sandman, and this was a review of a show we played at West Street Live a couple of months ago. It's only a few lines but it's still quite positive. If you live round here you can pick up a free copy (as you can with COMA), or there's an online PDF version. We're on page 27. I also sent a copy of our EP to Sandman, but they haven't reviewed it yet. Maybe next month?

The Goonies

During a rare period of free time yesterday I managed to catch The Goonies, as it was showing on Five. And although of course I'd seen it before, I realised how much of a masterpiece in nearly every way this film is.

And how badass is this song? We need more music like this.

Tuesday

It was my second day back at uni today. Already I have to start writing an essay, which sucks. Also, I'm trying to get my application for Kobe University sorted at the moment. Fortunately, the deadline for that is the end of May, which is later than for all the rest of my classmates.

It's the second Steel City derby of the season tonight between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. I was reading today that Wednesday haven't beaten United twice in the same season for over 90 years now, so it'd be nice if we could pull that off, especially as the three points might help us stay up!

I haven't mentioned on here yet, but I got tickets last week to go and see Rage Against The Machine at Leeds Festival! I knew they were rumoured to be playing at Leeds/Reading, although I thought tickets always went really quickly, so I didn't plan on going. But then we discovered that they were playing for definite and that day tickets aren't too hard to get hold of, so me and my friends bought some. RATM - live! Can't wait!

Also, had the first practice for a new band I'm in last night. I'm playing drums again, and we're going for a hardcore sound, with a bit of metal thrown in there. We need some more members, and a bigger practice space though. Also, one of the neighbours came round and complained. Not a good start. Or is it?

The Transformers: The Movie - my review

Last night I watched The Transformers: The Movie, which is different to Transformers, which I talked about here. The Transformers: The Movie is the animated film released in 1986, and I picked it up a while ago from Tesco really cheaply, but only just got round to watching it. Well, I did try to watch it a few weeks ago, but the first couple of minutes turned me off. Let me explain.

This is probably one of the worst films I have ever seen.

I'll start with the visuals. The first thing you notice is the really low frame rate, which, when combined with the poor animation, makes it quite hard to tell what's actually happening on screen. There are some points in the movie when things look good, but these are few and far between and don't last long - the majority of the film looks terrible.

Next, the storyline is generic and dull, and quite hard to follow. Much like the recent live action movie, it feels like you're simply watching a series of big fights, with no real idea of what's going on. A lot of things happen that don't really make sense, and there's just a general feeling of confusion. Like when the Autobots suddenly make friends with the natives of the planet Junk and everyone starts dancing - it took me a moment there to figure out exactly what was happening. After a while I just stopped taking this movie seriously.

The script here is very poor, basically 85 minutes of bad one-liners. And the dialogue is so hard to make out that I couldn't understand what was being said much of the time. The voices were really quiet and heavily synthesised, which makes them sound kinda cool, but hard to decipher.

Also, I couldn't really tell the difference between the characters visually, or remember their names well. (As a side-note, the villain in this movie, Unicron, bears a huge resemblance to Galactus from the Silver Surfer)

However, I did actually really enjoy the music in this movie. Throughout much of the film there's a cool, synthy, hard rock soundtrack pumping in the background (just about every cartoon from this era seemed to have this musical style - it's so awesome). Sometimes instrumental, and sometimes with lyrics, the music here is great. There's even a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic! In fact, I might get the soundtrack because I enjoyed it so much.

I missed out on Transformers altogether as a kid, which may have affected my experience, but overall this movie is extremely bad. Yes, it was aimed primarily at kids, but can even they enjoy something as poor as this?

I do have to say though that I am now quite intrigued by the Transformers toy line. As a toy they are a really, really great concept, and I might actually look into getting my hands on some. I remember Beast Wars from when I was younger, but they weren't as cool, and were really complicated to transform, so didn't really work.

So, in conclusion, The Transformers: The Movie is not that great of an actual film at all, but it's kinda interesting, so you might wanna check it out anyway. And do excuse me as I go and search for some Dinobots on eBay...

The Beat

It's only been five months since I last went to see Neville Staple of The Specials, but I went to see him again at Corporation last night, this time supporting another two-tone ska band from the Midlands, The Beat.

I didn't actually know any of The Beat's songs up until a few days ago, but I enjoyed their set, especially Mirror In The Bathroom. One thing that comes across about their music is that it's so feel-good. Even when their songs were dealing with some of the social problems of the 80s it was still always upbeat and positive.

I think there are actually two versions of The Beat around now. One is officially called The New English Beat (the band I went to see last night) and has two of the original members, and the other is called The English Beat and is based in the US with one original member.

And what's with all the snow lately? It's been snowing loads, which is kinda weird for this time of year. It's meant to be spring now.

Also, Happy Easter!

The New English Beat MySpace page

I break metal

A week since my last post?! Not that much has happened really. I've been enjoying listening to Controller 1 by Shnabubula though. This is some really awesome chiptune action that gets better with each listen; I recommend you check it out whether you know what chiptunes are or not. Also, the new SoC EP is just about ready to be released on Pterodactyl Squad. It's been ages since we actually recorded these 4 songs, but I'm really pleased with the result.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that one of my cymbal stands broke whilst I was playing my kit. Well, my other stand also broke in exactly the same place a couple of days ago! It's craziness. Either they were really bad stands or I'm playing too hard (by the way, you can never play too hard). But these stands are made of METAL! I've ordered two new ones, and until then I can't really play drums.