Leader of the FAC

30Aug07

 
An Essential Mix tribute set from Radio 1 last week, a cracking hour a piece from Pete Tong and Mike Pickering. Thanks to The Cerysmatic Factory for the set-list.
Hour 1: Pete Tong – Factory Records
Joy Division ‘Transmission’
Joy Division ‘She’s Lost Control’
A Certain Ratio ‘Shack Up’
A Certain Ratio ‘Knife Slits Water’
Joy Division ‘Atmosphere’
The Durutti Column ‘Otis’
New Order ‘Confusion’
New [...]

Filed under: Music   |  2 Comments
Tags: Factory Records, Mike Pickering, Pete Tong, Tony Wilson

The Ballad of Uncle O’Grimacey

29Aug07

Not every cartoon character can be a Snoopy, Garfield or even a Hamburglar, spinning off millions of dollars of merchandise and joy to children everywhere, some are created simply as supporting faces in some baffling marketing campaign or as an attempt to zhush up some failing franchise. Some are just downright bizarre, and even more that that, [...]

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Tags: Hamburglar, McDonald's, Nintendo, Uncle O'Grimacey, Waluigi

The Ecstasy of Influence (I’m borrowing this title)

29Aug07

 
I came across this fascinating article from earlier in the year by novelist Jonathan Lethem, which skips playfully from Nabokov to Siegel to Dylan to Muddy Waters and beyond. It’s an engaging and thoroughly entertaining read about the notion of influence and outright larceny in art, so dig in.
As part of this theory, Lethem has launched [...]

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Tags: Harper's, Influence, Jonathan Lethem, Plagiarism, Promiscuous Materials

A bad month for Wilsons

29Aug07

I wasn’t expecting this development in the tragic Owen Wilson suicide mystery. After Love’s shouting off about Coogan in 2005, it’s becoming hard to separate trademark Love fruitcakery from the emerging picture of Coogan as an anti-Christ element. I say, talk to Jackie Chan, he might know something. 
A thoughtful piece on Owen can be found here, [...]

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Tags: Courtney Love, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan

An ofay beefs…

23Aug07

Ol’ Cab Calloway, apocryphally born in the back of a taxi on Christmas Day, the heppest cat in any town he found himself in. He didn’t just give us Minnie the Moocher, but also a lingustic treasure trove, one which we regularly plunder to this day. Compiling the latest slang from the jazz scene first [...]

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Tags: Cab Calloway, Jive, Mr. T

“Made love, read minds, went inside of over half of mankind”

22Aug07

A tribute to the man who first put the “O” in the Oval Office. And by tribute I mean largely libellous and hilarious catchy lo-fi mucking about of the highest order.
Bro grabs!

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Tags: JFK, Neely Comics

Farewell, Max Roach

17Aug07

 
Master of the skins, faster than the eye could see, the one and only Maxwell Lemuel Roach has passed away aged 83, and the New York Times has the most involving tribute, right here.
He was something of a local legend too, already immortalised in Brixton’s Max Roach Park. If you want to get stuck into some [...]

Filed under: Jazz, Music   |  1 Comment
Tags: Max Roach

Little Misters #3: We Don’t Care

17Aug07

From Madness to Audio Bullys via Suggs’ guest role on their last album, here is the definitive beginner’s guide to today’s Onion, and how he’s soured from the runabout larks of Baggy Trousers. Here’s a boy who thinks he’s an adult, with increasingly unsettling consequences.
It’s hard not to flinch from the dark [...]

Filed under: Audio Bullys, Music, Onions   |  1 Comment