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Latest diary entries
By Alex Harries
on Tue, 1st Jul 2008 at 05:17
One tune which will definitely be leaving an indelible imprint on the memories of clubbers in Ibiza this year will be Paul Keeley's "Homecoming". The tune's floaty synths coupled with the chugging bassline will have no trouble getting even the most laid-back clubbers to work up a sweat, and I promise you'll remember exactly where you were when you first heard it played out. I can't remember whether I heard this at Space or in Paul Van Dyk's amazing Cream Amnesia set, or if I imagined it and actually heard it somewhere else, but I don't care - this is an absolute builder :o) £1.99 at Beatport now :o) (out on Anjunabeats) Permanent link
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By Alex Harries
on Tue, 1st Jul 2008 at 01:36
Two things have been bugging me today. The first is reviews - mainly, in this case, music reviews. I'm going to preface what I'm about to say with this disclaimer; this is just a question. Nothing more, nothing less. Ok, with that out of the way, my question is this: is there a significant number of publication readers who actually bother to read beyond the first 50 words of a review of a single or album? And of the minority who definitely do, do the extra however-many-hundred words make a significant difference to the opinions they'd already formed from reading the first 50? I'm only asking because I have a gut-feeling that the shorter and snappier you can express your thoughts about a tune which might only last 3 1/2 minutes, or an album which someone might pay £10 for and then only listen to in its entirety once or twice, the more likely you are to actually influence someone's buying decision. And that, surely, is the whole point of writing (and by extension, reading) music reviews? Note that I think, if anything, the opposite is true of gig and event reviews - the more you info you can provide, the better (bitesize chunks though - great big monolithic blocks of text are only attractive to Sunday supplement readers). Anyway, onto the second thing that's annoyed me today: territory restrictions when you're trying to buy music over t'interweb. If you use the iTunes store, you probably won't have run into this phenomenon as iTunes simply doesn't (as far as I remember) show you the songs which you can't buy in your country, but for users of websites like BeatPort - a major provider of quality tuneage - it can get just the tiniest bit annoying to be told "Sorry, you can't buy this track as it is unavailable in your territory". This, apparently, is a result of the licensor (usually the record label) restricting sales to one geographic region. Meanwhile, all I want to do is buy a copy of Eric Prydz's "Pjanoo" (stupid name, epic song) and the new Man With The Red Face remix (again, awesome tuneage).Will the bloody website let me? Will it b******s! Now, I understand that there are arguments for this which appear perfectly sensible when they're explained by a record company drone, but the simple explanation here seems to be that, on the globally-available world-wide interwebnet thing, it's once again the record labels that are cashing in a short-term profit by restricting sales to a territory. In the long run, though, it's the whole music industry that loses out, since the vast majority of people who are really keen to get hold of a track and find they can't get it through legitimate means will simply turn to illegal sources, for example torrent sites. Get enough people into the habit of checking the torrent sites before they look at the legal download shops, and all the hard work put in by the online record stores to make it easy to buy fair-priced music online goes out the window. I don't expect the online music shops to cut off their noses to spite their faces so to speak - if they simply don't stock a track, then the people who could have bought it (i.e. the people in territories which the record labels will allow it to be sold to) miss out as well, and the record shop doesn't benefit either. So, once again it's down to the record labels, PR companies, and (in a few cases), the artists themselves to be less selfish - sorry, it's the only word I can think of here - and to accept the fact that the global music distribution landscape is changing, and their actions will determine whether they sink or swim. Anyway, it's just a thought. If you're looking to buy albums and singles online, you could do much worse than check out DJ Download or About 16 more words in this entry
By filmfan
on Sat, 28th Jun 2008 at 01:02
Summer's here and the bigger movies are out fighting. As seems to be the trend recently, there's gonna be some Superhero movies. There's even a spoof of the genre out but it must not be seen!. The reason is simple, each time you watch one of them, you finance the next. So if you saw the last ones you not only financed Superhero Movie, but also this pile of crap. You'll notice there's no link to the film's website and I won't mention it again, but Disaster Movie barely even seems to try to be a genre spoof movie. For starters, the horrible trailer references Juno - where's the logic there? Secondly it spoofs the Hancock trailer. yep, not the film, the trailer. They've found a new low. There's clearly no plot, or attempt to show it, in the trailer. This doesn't matter because I wouldn't see it if you paid me. Fortunately, June's had some great movies and ain't over yet. So, back to the real movies. Iron Man did the business, and The Incredible Hulk was next up. Starring Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, who is trying to control his inner green beast by running away from the US military. Having caught up and attacked him, The Hulk destroys all there nice toys and inspires one army dude, a Brit called Emil (Tim Roth) to try some of this dangerous radiation for himself. This makes him The Abomination an even uglier hulk-type, and a danger to everyone. Who's gonna stop him? A clue: He's big and green. The visuals are great, the pseudo-science logical, and the scope for sequels vast. 4/5 The Happening is scary. Not torture-porn scary, but WTF!? scary. Here's the plot: something happens, some humans die, some others try not to. Presumably already spoofed in that excuse for a film I won't mention again, The Happening stars Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel (He used to rap - badly, she sings now - sweetly, tho' not in this), as a couple caught up in the thing wot is Happening. Its got old school huh! whats there! scares and a strong cast altogether. If you don't like the ending then maybe it'll happen to you. 4/5 (You'll have noticed by now that this means i liked it) Wanted is an 18-certificate film. With guns. This generally means a number of other things. Like a secret society. Check. And a car chase/shootout. Check. And a sexy lady. Check. The good thing about all this is that it is better than Shoot 'Em Up of Smokin' Aces. It doesn't even need an apostrophe. James 'Young Man, Solid Lead' McAvoy who's mostly working class and/or pestering ladies in period costume, is a loser. He's recruited to The Fraternity and promptly beaten up by Morgan Freeman's cronies. Eventually they've got him killing baddies. And he kills people well. With SFX coming out of his ears. Well acted by everyone, and what a cast! Angeline Jolie joins James and Morgan and there's the sort of supporting cast that'd make a Hustle fan whoop. 4/5
Right then. June's seen a big green fella in stretchy purple trousers, Marky Mark running from something and James McAvoy cosing up to Angeline Jolie (lucky git!). If you have seen what i've seen and want to know what else I'd see here goes...
Last chance to see (if you can find somewhere in the fist place) The King of Kong & Gone Baby Gone Arcade game contest doc AND missing child mystery from Affleck's Ben and Casey.
Probably still out somewhere small
By adamsunman
on Fri, 27th Jun 2008 at 10:55
So, the Tories have won Henley, no real surprise there then ! Anywhere that voted in Boris Johnson ( I know what you're thinking and yeah , ok he's better than Ken and his Cronies) has to have been a conservative stronghold! - what I think is more important from the by-election is the huge blow to Labour coming fifth- as most of you know I'm not a big fan of Labour, but for this major party, however inadequate, to be beaten by the British National Party is a real disgrace, and a worrying display from upper-middle class England.
Labour was also beaten by the green Candidate, a result in which Mr. Blackall I'm sure will share my delight. I can see why people would be annoyed that the greens achieved such a high level of votes, as they are often seen as a single-issue party. However I don't feel that this is comparable to the BNP's proportion of votes. - Now I'm trying to write this in a way that doesn't make me sound like the more passionate delegates at a NUS meeting, but How can people be so dissolutioned by migration that they are led to vote for a party who have racist views?
I have two theories, Firstly. the way in which the BNP have glamourised racism, making it seem acceptable to 'respectable middle class families' - no longer hailing it's 'vanguard' of skinhead yobs as heroes, but taking a more sinister and dark path of seemingly 'gentle' racism, with an image of 'tea and sandwiches' with the vicar. This, twinned with the McCarthyist Hysteria that is Xenophobia today. I've said this before in previous blogs, so go there for more information, but Multiculturalism is a GOOD thing!
By Alex Harries
on Thu, 26th Jun 2008 at 23:12
One thing in Ibiza last week which reminded me how fascinating clubbers can be is how people respond to randoms approaching them in nightclubs. Take, for example, the responses when a girl is approached by a guy - in this case, "the guy" in question was none other than myself, a messy, grinning, glowstick-wielding mess: The Spanish
The French
The English
Have I missed something here? Or are some people seriously this enamoured with themselves? Very odd... ;o) (p.s. I'm thinking that option 2 is the best plan at the moment...) More diary entries... |
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