Please (and Thank You) Mr Postman!

It's here! The goods arrived today, finally!

So the bastards at play.com found their stock that they were temporarily "out of" after a whole week. I gots it now, all mine it is :)

Won't be pre-ordering anything from them again... :/

It May Be Winter Outside (But In My Heart It's Spring)

Well, half of that statement is true. But I like the tune. Which is now stuck in my head. And THAT makes me happy :)

It snowed today! Cue me running for the camera and leaning out of the back door. Needless to say, it was over in minutes.

What is it about snow that makes me so excitable like a child on Fanta and Wotsits?

Take Five

Inspired by track 5 from the brand-spanky-hot-new We Are Scientists album, Brain Thrust Mastery. This aptly describes my mood at the moment.

So, to take my mind off the fact that play.com have still not supplied me with the purposely pre-ordered 2-disc special edition of Brain Thrust Mastery*, today children, this post revolves around the number five!

I've put my iTunes on shuffle and these are the first five songs (no skipping!)

1. Michael McDonald - I Keep Forgettin'


2. We Are Scientists - Be My Baby


3. Geoffrey Williams - Drive


4. Plan B - No Good


5. N*E*R*D - Rock Star

How bang up-to-date is that? I'm fresh to death with the new music...ahem.

Good tunes though. I was listening to Michael McDonald waaaay before Warren G came along in '94. One of my Mum's favourites. And Geoffrey Williams...wow. Haven't listened to that for a long, long time. I remember looking everywhere for that track afer I first heard it. Everything was CD's back then. None of this illegal downloading guff. It was the thrill of the chase!

You remember, don't you?

Hearing a song for the first time on the radio, missing what the DJ said just before they played it, trying to find out what the song was, singing bits of it to your friends' blanker-than-blank faces? Finally getting hold of the details, then having a four or five week wait until the release date, eagerly listening to the radio in the meantime in case they played it again? Then finally getting your hands on the pristine compact disc, playing it over and over again until you got sick of it (about a week later in my case), or until the next "choon" came along...yep, those were the days my friend.

My 5th gig was Kanye West at Hammersmith Apollo, 21 February 2006. Keyshia Cole supported. It was such an awesome show. He had the string section there and everything.

Not a huge venue, I went on my own having taken the day off work. I remember sitting in a pub for what seemed like forever, just waiting for 7pm to come round so I could line up with the crowd. When we got in, we were all rammed in like sardines and the whole place was bouncing! Brilliant, just brilliant.

My 5000th song on last.fm: Noel Gallagher - Wonderwall (Ryan Adams' arrangement)

It's Noel Gallagher acoustically performing Wonderwall in the way that Ryan Adams did on his album Love Is Hell. So it's Oasis covering Ryan Adams, covering Oasis. I'd been listening to Ryan Adams' version as a favourite for a long time and didn't realise Noel had done it in this way. I love it. You can get it from the link above.

My 5th most listened to track on iTunes is: Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up To Dry.

That surprised me a little. I was expecting it to be W.A.S. Not to disappoint myself though, the 5th most listened to We Are Scientists track is: Lousy Reputation. Nice :)

5th CD album in my collection is: Air - Moon Safari

5th CD single is: Artful Dodger feat. Romina Johnson - Movin' Too Fast

5th DVD is: The Business (2005)

Yes, I am anally retentive and EVERYTHING lives in alphabetical order. It has to. Them's the rules.

* I caved and bought the standard edition of Brain Thrust Mastery today. I don't really do waiting...I'm impatient that way :)

Late Review

The thing is with me, I'll see a trailer for a new film that I really want to watch but won't get round to seeing it. Then I forget about it because I see another trailer for a film that I really want to watch. This goes on for a while until I remember what they were or I suddenly find I'm the only person not to have seen the biggest film of two years ago. Or something like that.

Plus when I do see the film, I instantly forget what I've just seen. All I remember is that I've seen it, if I liked it or not and perhaps the cast. My friends go around quoting one-liners from movies and say "do you remember that bit in that movie where she thinks it was him who did that and it wasn't, it was really her neighbour's nephew's dog?". Nope. It all goes *whoosh* straight over my head. It's not such a bad thing, at least I don't get bored of watching my DVD collection!

So, what I do now is borrow the movies on DVD from my friends. Last week I borrowed four of them. I've just spent five minutes trying to remember what they all were. I've had to write the titles down on a notepad next to me in case I forget again. Srsly. That's how bad my memory is for films. It's the same for books too. But not for...music! How does that work?


Four movies, these are them (in viewing order):

Shoot 'Em Up

I thought Shoot 'Em Up was really good, alot of fun to watch. It didn't drag and just seemed to fly by which is always a good sign. If you're looking at your watch instead of watching the movie, there's trouble.

Paul Giamatti played the bad guy role (Hertz) perfectly. The humour sprinkled through the film helped it along nicely. The only niggle I had was the corny one-liners Smith (Clive Owen) had to say when he was despatching many of the goons sent in his direction. So lame!

Action-packed and slick, and there's never anthing wrong with spending a couple of hours looking at Clive Owen...

Rise of the Footsoldier

Now this, this was something special. I absolutely loved Rise of the Footsoldier. It kept me hooked throughout. The main reason for this was the fact it's based on the true story of Carlton Leach. I'd heard of the "Rettendon Range Rover" murders in Essex years ago but wasn't aware of any background. This film tells the story of Carlton's chain of events leading up to the murders and supplies a version of how the murders took place. The truth of what actualy happened that night is still unknown.

Yes, it was bloody. Yes, it was extremely violent. But that's how it went down in the world he was in. I didn't think any of it was gratuitous and I'm sure without it, the film would have been limp and nowhere near as gritty as it was. A must-see film.

Disturbia

Aha, Disturbia. I have to say, I wasn't expecting much from this at all. I'd already pigeon-holed it into the teen-horror-thriller-suspense-fest category. It proved me wrong.

Good, simple storyline (always a bonus with me!) and doesn't try to mess your head up too much. Also the first time* I've seen Shia LaBeouf in action. He was good, damn good. But even better was David Morse as his creepy neighbour. I've only got to look at him and he gives me the heebie-jeebies...*shudder*. Interesting to see Carrie-Anne Moss play a mom role. She shouldn't do that, I can only see her as Trinity! I don't want to give anything away, but it's a film I'd definitely recommend...if there is actually anyone out there who hasn't seen it yet?

(*yep, I haven't seen Transformers yet either...)


Lucky Number Slevin

I saved this until last as this came highly recommended. And I can see why...smooth, very smooth. I was wowed by the cast too. Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci, Josh Hartnett and Lucy Liu.

I like my films twisty-turny and it didn't disappoint. Again, it flew by and was slick. I was pleasantly surprised! I'm so glad I've seen it, as I dont remember it being given that much hype when it came out (2006) and I don't think I was that bothered about seeing it at the time. T'was fun though, I'd highly recommend it too!

So, that's my opinion of those movies. I know I'm a rubbish reviewer. But the way I see it, I'm bloody lucky I remembered any of that at all... :)

Pumping On Your Stereo

Supergrass played a blinding show at The Junction last night. They were soooo good.

Their new stuff (from forthcoming album "Diamond Hoo Ha") rocked too. They played a good mix of oldies and newies and the crowd loved it...apart from the fact that there didn't seem to be much action going on? I definitely expected a mosh down at the front, but it was not to be.

I wouldn't have been in it, but I'm sure the 'Grass might have liked to be shown the love a teensy bit more.

Anyhoo, here are the pictures. And some videos for your viewing pleasure...

Kiss Of Life:

Pumping On Your Stereo:



Caught By The Fuzz:

Stream A Little Stream Of Me...

Oh, meant to say. NME are streaming Brain Thrust Mastery in full!

Been listening to this a hell of a lot. On repeat. The whole thing. Seriously.

And I love it all. This is not me being unconditional. There is not one track on BTM that I want to skip. It's vastly different from With Love And Squalor and that's good. WLAS is perfect and didn't need a #2.

Brain Thrust Mastery has so much depth. It kinda wraps itself around your ears. I also think it's got a bit of an eighties sound to it too. I'm not into making comparisons to other bands (so I won't!). We Are Scientists do not sound like any other band. Yeah, they may have strong influences, doesn't everyone?

I'm just a bit peeved with some of the lazy reviews out there that seemingly have to compare nearly every track on BTM with the work of another band. Grr!

On a lighter note, I haven't got any favourites yet. Too early for that.

It's out on March 17th and should arrive on my doormat that very morn...

Impatience!

I could/ should have done this earlier, but didn't get round to it for some reason. Anyway, here's what I was blathering on about in my last post...

We Are Scientists did their instore thang at Fopp in Cambridge last Thursday. And I had nothing better to do than go along and see them! So, as the guy who worked there said..."a lot of interest"... blah blah blah..."get here early if I was you"...etc. I got there at 11am. Nothing. Not a twinkle that anyone even knew what was going to happen later that day. So, I made a decision to check back every hour or so to see if there was any interest.

I was wandering around Cambridge city centre like a lost soul for the whole afternoon! I thought about taking the opportunity to take some pretty photos of the city, but then decided against draining the battery on my camera. I had enough foresight (thankfully) to spot the potential schoolgirl error in the offing...makes a change for me. Luckily, I had a book and it wasn't raining. Four o'clock they started queuing. Four o'clock!

So, I got in line with the indie cindies and their grumpy boyfriends who'd clearly all bunked off school for the afternoon. And I know I was twice their age. Did I mention I was also conspicuous by my lack of friendage? Meh.

On the positive side, it meant we only queued for an hour and a half. Whilst I was in the queue, I came to the conclusion that I may have been the only actual proper fan there. There must have been 30-40 people in the queue when out of nowhere, Max Hart (keyboards/ guitar) just comes and stands on Sidney Street, like he was waiting for someone. Right outside the shop. For about twenty minutes. Not a soul recognised him.

Anyhoo. It's 5.30 and the line is soooo long, I can't see where it ends. I'm about 25th in line (the queue somehow grew sideways with the emo kids and their mates), and they're letting people in ten at a time. There's four or five security guards on duty. So I get in, get a good view, maybe second row, hard to tell. It got rammed! 200 capacity apparently.

I spent the first five minutes doing what I usually do in the Barfly. Looking in vain for the fire exits... just in case!


We are standing there for what seems an eternity, listening to Def Leppard at full blast. Good choice fellas! They come on, casual as you like, Chris promises the crowd a Def Leppard listening party after their set, which goes down well.

They played "After Hours", "Lethal Enforcer", "The Great Escape", "Cash Cow" and "Impatience". Although probably not in that order, my recall's not good.

It was, of course, brilliant. It didn't last too long, but that was good considering the confined space! We then queued up yet again to get stuff signed. That took a good twenty minutes or so, but it was worth it. Look! ^^
All in all, awesome. Full set of pictures here.

The Great Escape...



Impatience...

Mr Brightside

Yesterday was a really bad day for me. I just couldn't see me ever getting out of this current situation. I got a couple of nice emails/ texts from friends and I just cried. And then cried some more. I never left my room all day...and now feel a bit silly about it.

I caught up on Torchwood and Reaper to cheer myself up. There's nothing like watching pretty boys running around after evil stuff to lighten the mood...

Today is better already. My circumstances haven't changed, but I've been a bit more proactive. I've applied for five (!) jobs already today and have made a conscious effort to just get out there, do it, and show people that I've got so much to offer.

I'm so looking forward to tomorrow. Going to see these pretty boys... :)

They're doing an instore at Fopp and signing stuff. Should be great as long as I'm not lining up for hours to see them. I rang the store today and asked if there would be wristbands or tickets issued and the guy said no, first come, first served. He also said there had been alot of interest and I should get there early. Blimey, shouldn't all the kids be at school? He also said they'd be playing on the ground floor and that they'd have to "shuffle a few things around to fit them in". Can't wait to see that, it's frickin' tiny.

So I'm going to wander up there tomorrow morning, see if there's a queue. If there is, I'll join it. But I'm not starting the queue, no way. Too old for that shit. And I won't be touching any of them in an inappropriate manner, honest guv...

Slowly Turning That Frown Upside Down...

This made me laugh soooo much:



as did this...



and this...

No Excuses

First of all, I don't know why it's been so long since my last post. Not like I have anything else to do, is it?

I'll try and fill in the gap from 26th Jan to the present day...as briefly as possible!

Gigs:

• 28/01 - Art Brut @ Cambridge Barfly (pictures/video)
• 29/01 - The Courteeners @ Cambridge Barfly (pictures/video)
• 31/01 - The Broken Family Band @ Cambridge Barfly (pictures/video)
• 05/02 - Art Brut @ ULU, London (pictures)
• 06/02 - Travis @ The Junction, Cambridge
• 13/02 - Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly @ The Junction, Cambridge (pictures/video)
• 15/02 - The NME Tour @ Cambridge Corn Exchange (pictures)
• 20/02 - We Are Scientists @ Soho Revue Bar, London (pictures/video)
• 28/02 - We Are Scientists @ Soho Revue Bar, London (pictures/video)

Movies:

• Sweeney Todd - Had to see Johnny sing! It was great, put me off pies a little though.
• Juno - I loved it...I took myself along alone as a birthday treat.

I've also had my birthday, attended an awesome birthday party with superstar DJ's (natch), been to two Ann Summers parties, came second in the pub quiz twice and had some job interviews (not enough).

I think that's it.