Nic Walker

bbc news anachropost of the day

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:14:26 GMT

First posted: Wednesday, 14 January, 2004

Currently: Number 1 most emailed story on the BBC News website.

ni.chol.as

ARSE MOTH

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:09:51 GMT

I swear to you solemly that this is what the headline looked like to me, obscured by someone’s fat hands on the way home tonight. No news yet as to whether the Police will be prosecuted for the arse-death or what the moth’s next actions will be. Stand by.

ni.chol.as

I love my inbox

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:51:20 GMT

From a chap on a mailing list I am on...

BBC News anachropost of the day

Sun, 25 May 2008 22:24:07 GMT

Condoms ‘too big’ for Indian men

First posted: Friday 8th December 2006

Currently: Number 1 most emailed story on BBC News website

ni.chol.as

Five Holga Pics

Thu, 22 May 2008 10:43:15 GMT

I took these some time ago and then let the films languish on my shelf, afraid to develop them. In the process of shooting them, the back fell off the camera, I left the lens cap on, I forgot to wind the film on, I forgot to focus. Remembering only the errors I made, I thought I’d be wasting my money to get them processed. In the end, I’m rather happy with the results.

They’re on Flickr in their full-size glory.

ni.chol.as

London Elects Snork Maiden as Mayor

Fri, 02 May 2008 23:21:46 GMT

We’re fucked.

ni.chol.as

Facechair is staring at you

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:06:32 GMT

HELLO!

ni.chol.as

the jesus pizza

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:20:25 GMT

We just hopped the language barrier, smashed our way through the mental Japanese addressing system, ordered online and ate this astonishing beast. It is a 15 inch pizza with burgers on it. The chap from Dominos who delivered it was, as always here, incredibly polite. Everyone in the hostel’s lounge looked at us like we were the absolute spawn of Satan. The pizza tastes exactly like it looks, which is to say, it tastes of impending heart failure. See you in hell!

ni.chol.as

Someone liked the beer review...

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:26:58 GMT

From comments at the blog:

Just after reading what you said about the Plemium and I have to say it mate but, I have never read such crap in all Asahi my life! Frigging Asahi stole Kirins taste from sparkling hop…!!

Can you honestly say that, that Asahi Plemium does NOT taste as fruity as the sparkling hop? I made the unfortunate mistake of buying a frigging Asahi Plemium and once I tasted it I just frigging realized that I got fucking ripped off!

The sparkling hop may not be beer but it is a hell of a site cheaper than that Plemium with the same taste!

And another thing. It fucking seems no matter what drink you try out you always say that it’s “okay..” or you just give them ALL a negative review! I don’t see any other companies in ANY other countries making drinks like these by cutting out the calories while keeping up a reasonable enough taste.

I have come across beer review sites like this before and they are SUCH a waste of time as all they did was say that you were better to “stay” with the fake Budweiser(The American one) than to try any other beer and that the fake Budweiser was the ONLY REAL beer! Fucking big headed test tube babies!

I think he's upset that I ranked the Asahi better than the Kirin Sparkling Hop. Both were OK but the Asahi was better, despite being tasted at each end of the evening. I think maybe someone didn't read the sarcasm and levity into the article...

Bonus Beer review

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:52:16 GMT

Today we completed our unfinished business from last year; namely to get to the top of the Fushimi Inari shrine we visited last year. The shrine sits on the side of a mountain and is crisscrossed by footpaths enclosed by densely packed orange torii gates. The last time we tried to summit this bugger of a hill we started out too late and had to flee in fear of ghosts and the resident drunks, evidence of whom was found in discarded sake cups and litter. This year, we hit it at 2pm and were ready as we were ever going to be. Having made it all the way up and back down we are now in the perfect mood for a bonus extra special beer review! We found this one in a Lawson which we are bereft of in Asakasa: it’s called … STOUT. It’s made by Kirin, and it’s supposed to be Stout in the tradition of Guinness and Murphy’s and Beamish. Here goes, ladies and gentlemen.

KIRIN’S ORIGINAL BREW: STOUT

This stuff comes in a black can with gold highlights. There’s a good bit of English on the front to give you some exotic impressions. Apparently, “The aroma of roasted malt and smooth creamy foam enrich your precious time.” The initial nose is of burnt hay or caramel and it’s overwhelmingly strong. It’s sickly sweet to taste and still has the same burnt flavour from the smell. The aftertaste is cloying. It gave Barry hiccups. In summary: RUN AWAY, TASTES LIKE ARSE AND MAKES YOU HICCUP.

ni.chol.as

Japan beer review 2008

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:00:48 GMT

It’s raining. It’s been raining. It’s always rained. There’s never been a time it didn’t rain. This is Tokyo in April 2008. It’s even raining indoors, which managed to alarm our host, Satoshi, who called in a number of men to observe the problem and conclude that nothing can be done until Monday. It’s OK, though, only one of my compatriots is affected by The Dampening, which started overnight and left a large wet patch on his futon, thankfully saving the tatami from any damage. Besides, we have beer now. Everything can be made fine with copious application of beer.

Here we are, then, in the lounge of the ryokan having raided the local convenience stores for beer to supplement last year’s reviews of the local brews. There’s been a sea change in the new types of beer being advertised. They now focus on a) Hops and b) Zero carbohydrates. These lifestyle beers have previously scored poorly with us, and I don’t predict any better this time. Frankly, I’m scared.

YEBISU THE HOP

Doesn’t appall on the first sniff but rapidly disappoints on the taste after coming on promisingly. Think of a happy dog running towards you with its tail wagging and as it comes closer you realise it’s rabid and is about to savage you.

Rob says: A much rounder richer flavour than the Kirin Sparkling Hop. Apparently a mouth-filling ‘umami’ flavour to it. A little bit flat in gas content. Pleasant overall, flavoursome, a fairly distinctive style. Not particularly refreshing: not a hot-weather beer.

KIRIN SPARKLING HOP

Very sparkly, unsurprisingly. Tastes like not much. I think I’m drinking barely flavoured sparkling water. It says “The flavour of frozen hop” which is fairly accurate since freezing drinks has the effect of removing all the taste. If you have anosmia, you will have the same experience I just did drinking this.

Rob says: First taste of it seems quite fruity which is weird but as the flavour develops it becomes slightly watery. The first taste is fruity but the after-taste is sour.

Noteworthy is that the above two hoppy-named beers taste nothing of hops.

My non-beer drinking compatriots are drinking Zima. It looks like gay in a bottle and I’m refusing to drink it

SUNTORY ZERO NAMA

A 4% beer trying to be a draught beer in a can with low calories and zero carbohydrates. This is doomed to failure. It’s “clear and rich for a new lifestyle”. A new lifestyle with tasteless beer? Let’s see!

*sip*

Tastes like arse. Smells like seaweed. Wow.

KIRIN ZERO

Smells as bad. Tastes worse. Fuck me.

Rob: Tastes like weak dishwater.

Both of those were so bad they really don’t warrant any further words. We couldn’t finish them, they’re now communing with the sewage they undoubtably came from.

A quick snack is in order.

Mayomania crisps. Mayonnaise and tuna flavoured. Apparently very bland crisps with a logo - of a man guzzling a bottle of mayonnaise - more interesting than the contents.

SAPPORO VIVA! LIFE

Another “zero” beer. “Savor the flavor, this brew is for you. Think positive and enjoy life.” We’ll see.

Smells like sewage AGAIN. I don’t know what these guys are doing to remove the carbs from their beer but it’s sick and wrong. Even my non-beer-drinking compatriot knew it tastes awful. It tastes like the smell of hot sewers in a Paris summer. Avoid it, even if it’s free. It too went down the sink.

SUPER SPECIAL EXTRA SURPRISE

DENKI BRAN

A strange can of non-beer we picked up in the combini. It appears to be 7% alcohol of unknown origin. Smells of cosmetics. The only other evidence on the can is that it’s made of aluminium. Everyone tried to describe the smell and nobody could come up with another word than cosmetics. Under pressure, Rob said “ginger cake”. Perrin pulled a horrid face. Apparently this tastes like a root beer and dates from 1919 (Taisho 8, says the can!) Shockingly medicinal, says Rob.

Twenty minutes later, Barry complains that he’s fed up of drinking eyeliner

We’re gonna clear the last two dubious looking lifestyle beers so we can get on with a can that tastes inoffensive enough to finish.

ASAHI CLEAR

We’ve never had luck with the Asahi lifestylers so no high hopes here. Just to confirm, it’s not like TAB Clear - it is beer coloured, so no scary magic going on there. Rob claims it’s quite palatable in his tasting, so….

*slurp*

It’s better than the others we’ve tried. Slight chemical aftertaste which leads you to take the next gulp sooner than you’d want to. Not much else to say about it, really.

Barry says: “You’d die of boredom drinking this.” He’s quite right.

SUNTORY JYOKKI

Another beer claiming to be a draught. It tastes like… well, nothing much. It’s OK but there’s nothing distinctive to it. “A lively and crispy new draught” might be seen as a little hyperbole if it was written by anyone other than a marketer. Has a nice big can opening which the other makers could do well to take notes from. Easy gulping!

Rob says “It’s all right. It’s nothing special is it?”

Which about sums it up. Rob and I diverge in opinions at this point: Rob prefers the Asahi Clear and I prefer the Jyokki.

For some reason, on TV currently, Macauly Culkin has huge ginger lips. We change channel on the wave of vociferous complaint. One of MTV’s idents at the moment is “MTV BLOWS ME”. It doesn’t need the pronoun.

NEXT UP:

ASAHI AJIWAI

This can has no less than 4 different percentages on the can. 99.9%. 25%. 50%. 5%. There’s a large picture of a head of barley too. It’s like putting a picture of a happy smiling pig on packets of bacon; I really don’t want to remember that this drink comes from an ugly bit of grass. The can’s one of those fancy textured ones we don’t get in the UK. It makes it feel a little more expensive.

This is another perfectly palatable beer, which is an astonishing achievement for Asahi. Rob says the aftertaste is sour but otherwise perfectly fine. I don’t think it’s too bad. I finish it, so that’s a good sign.

OOLONG CHU HAI

Barry’s special non-beer drink. It’s alcoholic oolong tea. Rob says it’s fucking horrible. Perrin says it smells like tea bags. Fermented tea bags. It tastes like a cup of tea left for four hours that you accidentally pick up and drink by accident. Rob says “it’s like sucking on a used tea bag”. I try it…

Fucking dreadful. It initially tastes of cold tea. Then this incredible aftertaste kicks in and you wish for the apocalypse. Your entire life has led to you sitting in a tiny room on the other side of the world drinking aborted tea bags dipped in ethanol and shit and pumped into assembly lines of cans and wondering if maybe The Big One could come now, please, just so nobody could ever peddle this foul arse-water to anyone ever again.

SAKURA AND SAKURANBO - SUNTORY -196 deg C

Most of the label is taken up with the absurd temperature. Nobody can work out what was done to it at -196C. It smells of “oooh, that’s cherries”. It’s very pink inside. Rob makes an off colour comment about the colour and Barry says “mm, I could finish that.” They do. Perrin correctly predicts I’d hate it. I use a barge-pole to politely decline the offer.

The Frenchman staying here who took a whole hour in the shower yesterday morning is trying to break the record for taking up the toilet for the longest time in the 50 year history of this ryokan. He is a prodigious, biblical, shitter.

Ok, we’re down to the last two beers.

PREMIUM YEBISU ALL MALT BEER

Well shit me if we didn’t leave the best until last. Hit up the gold cans, ladies and gentlemen. A distinctive taste from the rest of this crop, fills the mouth and is worth sipping on. I feel like I’ve wasted the entire night waiting for this can. This whole review idea was stupid!

Rob says: This actually reminds me a bit of the other Yebisu we had. The same sort of round, umami, feel that the other one had.

ASAHI PREMIUM

Oh Christ, another Asahi. It’s premium though, maybe it doesn’t suck?

Watery but some good flavour to it nonetheless. Probably quite nice if it’s cooled well. Rob says: Probably the nicest Asahi we’ve had. It’s got a good malty background flavour to it.

We think the Yebisu wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste. It’s my favourite of the batch but the Asahi Premium would be worth a try to anyone not enamoured with flavoursome malty beers. None of the beers we’ve had tonight beat last year’s standout beer, the Kirin Gold and none at all come close to Asahi Super Dry which is exported throughout the world for a very good reason: it’s their best.

Photos via Flickr, click through for the original photo pages. I took photos at the time, but I’m 200 miles away from my card reader; typical!

Yebisu The Hop by Snowy***

Sakura and Sakuranbo Chu-hi by mullenkedheim

ni.chol.as

It’s raining geeks (and rain)

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:58:18 GMT

We shan’t talk about last night. I’m sure my compatriots will have already spilled the beans, but the behaviour of men deprived of sleep for 36 hours and put through the sausage machine of international air flight should be looked upon in a favourable context. Like the naughty boy in class whose Mum just died. “There, there, we understand. Just don’t do it again.”

We necked some melatonin before bed, the label of which promises to fix all sleep and jet-lag related woes. It doesn’t mention getting you jailed in Dubai, but it doesn’t matter. The star at the end of the label points you to a disclaimer which might as well say, “Everything we just said was a lie.” It seemed to work regardless; we slept for nearly 12 hours and woke up just past 9. If we can manage the same tonight, I think we’re onto a pharmacological winner.

Today was spent in nearby Akihabara which is as close to hell as it’s possible to get in Tokyo. A giant thoroughfare crammed solid with shops selling all manner of goods, the only requirement for stocking being that it appeals to legions of wildly obsessive fans of games, comics, porn or electronics. The shops are uniquely spaceless and stuffed to the gills with people. Despite all this, it’s a remarkably fun place to visit; the eye is never short of things to look at and the mind is never short of marvelling at things like, who on earth collects perfect scale models of construction cranes? Much of our time here is spent wondering how much we could resell anime-related tat for back in Britain and will it offset the postage costs to get it back. Usually the answer is no.

My major problem today was that my wallet seems to set off the flavour of electronic anti theft gates that shops have in their doorways here. Any shop I walked into, I was greeted with a screaming siren and one or more shopkeepers interested in knowing why. It wasn’t long before I was having heart palpitations over walking into stores hoping I wasn’t going to be dragged into another difficult situation. To preempt a heart attack, I took to leaving the wallet - emptied of its contents - in a hiding place outside each shop. It somehow worked; something I’m sure would be impossible in London.

Tonight we intend to perform some authentic and detailed reproductions of Japanese and English-language popular music in the local Karaoke venue. It’ll be a cultured affair, as usual. Outside the influence of some of our esteemed Karaoke company in London, we hope to avoid renditions of Celine Dion, Elton John and, jesus, Gackt.

ni.chol.as

Off to Japan, brb

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:02:45 GMT

My cohorts and I are departing for Japan tomorrow afternoon for a two-week exploration of the aesthetics and anthropological nature of the land of the rising sun. Some may stick their noses up and claim that we are merely going to indulge in deep-geekery, public nudity and drink all the beer we can, but I must protest in the strongest possible way. We are there for educational reasons only and I hope our actions will speak louder than your cynical brayings.

Assuming some terrible accident doesn’t befall us, I’ll hopefully manage to post the odd titbit before I return. Until then, sayonara!

ni.chol.as

BBC News anachropost of the day

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:09:25 GMT

Russian squirrel pack ‘kills dog’

First posted: Thursday, 1 December 2005

Currently: Number 1 most emailed story on BBC News website

ni.chol.as

Atome Fabrik make nice goggles

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:31:04 GMT

His website, however, is an incredible exercise in outsider web design. If you can handle having your eyes subjected to epilepsy-inducing flickering from the sidebars, you can dig inside and find the steampunk-inspired goggles that we saw at Interzone on Friday. They seem to be well constructed, had a great heft to them and look absolutely fantastic. They’ll go ever so well with my stolen glittery cowboy hat, I’m sure…

In case you fancy some other styles, he makes more traditional cyberpunk and Industrial types too.

ni.chol.as

Fo’ shizzle my mizzle

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:00:45 GMT

A related pair of weather words for enhancing your vocabulary and alienating friends at the dinner table.

Mizzle: to rain in fine drops or mist. Imagine a misty drizzle.

Grismal: A slang neologism and portmanteau formed from “grey” and “dismal”. Particularly worthy word for inclusion in the English language because of it’s (probably unintentional) nod towards the french, “gris” and “mal”.

Today’s weather has so far managed to fulfil both of these word’s meanings.

Crossposted to ni.chol.as

Interzone: Polstar portraits

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:30:56 GMT

Despite being a visually intense experience, not so many people were around to photograph the happenings at Interzone. Thankfully for us, Polstar was there with her camera and a little portrait studio in the bazaar. She’s uploaded her portraits and they’re good! Feast your eyes upon bearded magic mentalists, insectoid stiltmen and other oddities from the evening at Polstar Photography. There are more at her Flickr page, too. Here’s one to whet your whiskers…

Crossposted to ni.chol.as

Interzone: People who aren’t allowed on planes

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:16:29 GMT

The sign above the stairs down to the toilets reads, “Tight Ship People, Tight Ship”. An exhortation to watch the slippery floor would have been more useful. It was like someone had spiked the cleaner’s mop and bucket with KY lube. I have been convinced to come here tonight, partly against my better judgement. It was always bound to be a weird experience, and I acknowledge that I wanted that. In spite of this, I didn’t need to see the girl with red-stained sanitary napkins masquerading for epaulettes on her Hitler costume. “Be thankful for small mercies”, I remember thinking, “at least her tampon earrings are fresh from the wrapper.”

Tonight, we’re in Interzone, a real-life homage to William S. Burroughs’ heroin-spiked nightmare visions from “Naked Lunch“. The dresscode read “misfits, gypsies, pirates, terrorists” and as best I can see it’s been taken quite literally. Tonight there are bands, performance art, artists, DJs, a marketplace, all orbiting the common theme of this weird 1950s beat novel. To buy drinks we head to the Bureau de Change where I’m offered a one-to-one exchange rate on Hell Pounds which look and smell like real money and have, indeed, got HELL POUNDS written on them above chinese characters and a picture of some doubtless important man from Asian history. We get booze, since this entire place will clearly not appear to make any sense at all until we are thoroughly wasted. The menu charged 3.5 Hell Pounds for Organic Beer and, if you can get past the implicit message to be a good boy, “Corporate Beer” costs 2 Hell Pounds. We do the Right Thing and drink some zero-carbon-footprint hippy lager until they run out.

We walk through a large room with a stage in. A man with a crop of flowers on his head and a silver bin-bag ensemble masquerading as clothes is dancing around whilst a girl sings. The rest of the memories faded but their enthusiasm in the face of absurdity was impressive. Another band featured a compact-faced girl singing some kind of Russian soprano lead vocals against a remarkably competent violinist with snappy drums behind. Then a man kicked in with a rap and the whole thing descended into Linkin Park with violins.

A man walked past with a vest made of large silver donuts wearing a bright red horned helmet. Later, I noticed that all of the silver donuts were actually little clocks. None of them told me the time. Someone upstairs, in the bazaar, had painted a giant multi-titted pig-monster on a massive canvas. People stopped and stared and I’m pretty sure at least one nerdy looking type touched himself. The rest of the Tangiers bazaar was made up of little stalls and large numbers of sofas upon which the exhausted residents of Interzone collapsed and frolicked, slept and zoned out. A genius DJ played tracks that crossed over North-African sounds with conventional Western electronica whilst above, giant white raptors hung from the ceiling waiting to fall on the unsuspecting. A man who came dressed as a butcher was wearing sausages around his neck. We found him later, bereft of his meaty necklace. Apparently he’d been convinced to try turning them into balloon animals which had catastrophically failed when the sausage-poodle’s head leaked everywhere. The butcher had also managed to lose a pair of gammon steaks which failed to turn up despite me keeping an eye open for the rest of the night. He seemed a little morose; I felt sorry for him.

Later, a man with no clothes on whatsoever was queuing for the cloakroom to, presumably, get his clothes back. I can’t quite peg how weird this seemed at the time.

The latter part of the night, into the very small hours was spent in the company of a pair of Dream Machines. A light bulb obscured by rotating cylinder of cut paper designed to project light at a certain frequency to coincide with particular brainwaves. In the background, an array of electronics and a single guitarist tuned out a long sludgy soundscape. Everyone in there was, in the spirit of things, pretty much stoned, tripping, asleep or a combination thereof. Given the preponderance of cushions, we jumped at the chance to relax. A guy in a Russian military uniform sucked on a pipe and was struck pale and wordless until his struggling brain rebooted into safe-mode and rendered him capable of movement again. I saw him later looking very content with the world. Another girl was writhing around on the floor clearly in the throes of ecstasy and wanting any kind of physical contact she could get. She had the tiniest feet I’ve ever seen.

With the atmosphere and sound effects slowed down to an idle thrum, I took the opportunity and went home. I took with me my new silver glittery cowboy hat whose origins will forever be lost to that bizarre place.

Crossposted to ni.chol.as

BBC News anachropost of the day

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:49:37 GMT

Snake bursts after gobbling gator

First posted: Wednesday, 5 October 2005

Currently: Number 1 most emailed story on BBC News website

Crossposted to ni.chol.as

Sunn O))) and Boris broke my ears

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:46:58 GMT

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been, ooh, seven months since I posted. Winter is brutal to the desire to write or photograph or indeed do anything at all other than ensconce oneself in a warm bed and talk bollocks at IRC.

I did end up going to all those concerts mentioned in the last post. By far the most noteworthy was Sunn O))) whose concert was too unique to transfer to any other medium than, perhaps, writing. Photographs wouldn’t tell you about the sound and no microphone could capture the sheer breadth of the sound they produce. The genre is, ostensibly, their own. Drone Metal takes instruments, guitars, keyboards, electronic eclectica with many knobs and foreign logos on them, and turns it into a wall of intense noise, feeding back, crescendoing and falling away over the course of minutes. One song can be an hour long. Taking something like this to stage led Sunn O))) at least to don stage personae. Black hooded robes, a la grim reaper, on each of the performers hides their faces and keeps the onus on the mystery; mainly the mystery of what twisted people invented something like this.
For “Drone Metal”, I thought there’d be a lot more black-clad long-haired types at the venue than actually turned up. Instead it attracted a quite indecipherable range of people. It felt like word of mouth drove people to this gig than any adherence to stereotype, subculture or fandom. The result was that people-watching, the only entertainment you have when you’re alone at a gig, was even more fun. There was a man with a foot long beard and a beret who was smiling incoherently at nothing. I have no idea if he knew what was about to happen to his ears or if he knew, had plans to survive, and was grinning in the way a master criminal knows he’s outwitted everyone. Another man, a fat, balding geek whose only excuse for his neoprene bumbag was that he was probably from the continent was wondering around with glasses on retainer strings in a way which isn’t legal in the UK until you have been teaching for 25 years.

Before Sunn O))) was a Japanese trio called Boris. The first strum on the combined bass and lead guitar was so impossibly loud and baritone that I couldn’t swallow. I moved forward to see what was going on and watch them play for an hour, mellow rock tunes complete with drum breaks slowed down tenfold, like you’re listening underwater, on drugs, near a black hole. Boris’s guitar, double necked, was missing the head end as if his neighbour had taken offense to the awful noise their practice sessions made and sawn it off in protest. It was used expertly to feedback and overlap its own notes in ways I ceased to understand. I just kicked back and absorbed it all with the rest of the crowd. They all looked mesmerised and swayed slowly, like manboobs on an exercise bike. Time passed and endless crescendo after crescendo were playing out on stage in ever more intense waves. A porky-eyed nerd pushed past me and blocked my view in order to assess the girl on guitar. He prodded his friend and gave his enthusiastic assessment of the girl. They nodded in agreement, cementing her place as his next masturbatory fantasy. When the the cacophony finally ended, I missed it. It was like someone turned off a machine whose noise you’d long since gotten used to. It’s a weird experience, this genre. The absence of a regular beat gives you nothing to hang your brain on and with nothing to latch your attention on to, you don’t really listen to it at all, you just absorb it.

Sunn O))) come next. I watch them setting up. An array of sinister electronics on stage as if HR Giger fucked Korg and squeezed out little alien machines born exclusively to fuck with your ears. The drum kit had its own amps. Faced with the concept of aural armageddon, someone played “Surfin’ USA” over the PA. Just to fuck with us. More and more amps take the stage until there back of the stage is made entirely from speakers. This looks like it’s going to be seriously loud. I have a sudden recollection of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and a concert held on a planet’s surface only safely observed from bunkers hundreds of miles away. I want a bunker, now.

The band take the stage. The lead singer looks like the progeny of Rob Zombie and a tree. He only had one visible arm which appeared to be evidence he’d recently been fisting a Hawthorn bush, covered in wiry, woody protuberances. Sunn O))) hit their first, astounding, chord. The porky-eyed nerd screamed as his eyeballs exploded over the neck of the hipster girl stood in front of him. She screamed and her ears exploded in bloody fountains as if someone had stuck a carnation in each ear. The annoying squeaky-voiced girl behind me stopped talking and seemed to be collecting her prolapsed guts from the floor where she’d deposited them shortly after the sound hit. In the toilets, two inexplicably suited men were taking a piss as the crescendo hit. Their groins exploded in their hands and I see them later, crawling around in the shit and the piss, quite insane now.

I take a seat on the floor next to a tired-legged emo girl amongst the lost eyeballs and missing entrails. I can’t see the band performing, but it’s irrelevant. They are a band to hear, and besides, if I stand up I’ll be subjected to the full force of that wall of sound and be liable to lose my hearing. Or eyeballs. My glass of beer, on the floor in front of me, looks like that cup of coffee from Jurassic Park warning of the impending dinosaur, with concentric rings wobbling about on the surface. I look down at it seconds later and see it moving across the floor with the vibrations. I put it between my feet to keep it from escaping. There’s stage diving going on in front of me, everyone’s arms are raised up and there’s applause and cheering but you can’t hear a thing of it. The sound turns to mush, falls apart and collapses to the ground and all that’s left is screaming tinitus that stays for three days.

Crossposted to ni.chol.as

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:38:26 GMT

"Denchu Kozo concerned itself with an unhappy young boy with an electricity pylon growing out of his back, who is transported into the future and must do battle with cyborg vampires trying to destroy sunlight."

Clicks on "Download".

IMDB || Torrent

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:10:20 GMT

Here's some photos from the Chanology anti-Scientology protests on Sunday.

Flickr Guest Pass:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/51035725600@N01/59cZ86

There's a BBC article this morning, too. And one in the Sun!

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:11:11 GMT

You should read this if you use Dreamhost. Monster billing fuckup.

http://dreamhoststatus.com/

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:41:25 GMT

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' new video and song, "Dig Lazarus Dig". It looks like it was filmed in one shot. Anyone else get a sense of "isn't he in Electric Six?" from this video?

-- http://www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com/diglazarusdig/index.html

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:24:13 GMT

The vocalist of the now defunct band, Mad Capsule Markets has a new project called Wagdug Futuristic Unity. It's essentially just Kyono Hiroshi collaborating with different musicians. He's released a mini album called Nu Riot and there's a video of a song from it floating around on Youtube that's absolutely awesome - dystopian gasmask wearing evildoers.

I found it via the wonderful Ectoplasmosis blog. Video's right there!

http://www.ectomo.com/index.php/2008/01/07/noise-du-jour-ill-machine-by-wagdug-futuristic-unity-featuring-ultra-brain/

Also, Wikipedia huzzah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Kyono