So I haven't really been posting much.

This is because, well, I can't think of much to post about.

I really should do something regular that I can regularly post about otherwise what little point there is in this place will vanish entirely.

Not that I imagine a lot of people read this a lot.

Where do we go from here?

I want to listen to The Bends now, goodnight

Radiohead, Victoria Park, 25th June 2008

First off, I'm going to post the setlist, so then I can harp on about how awesome it was.

'Reckoner'
'15 Step'
'There There'
'All I Need'
'Lucky'
'Nude'
'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi'
'Myxomatosis'
'The National Anthem'
'Faust Arp'
'No Surprises'
'Jigsaw Falling Into Place'
'Optimistic'
'Videotape'
'Everything In Its Right Place'
'Idioteque'
'Bodysnatchers'
- - -
'House of Cards'
'The Bends'
'Bangers + Mash'
'My Iron Lung'
'Karma Police'
- - -
'Go Slowly'
'2+2=5'
'Paranoid Android'

Now that that's over with...

This was an amazing gig. If you're a Radiohead fan you'll have seen that we got an absolutely fantastic setlist - damn near all the songs they played are favourites of mine, and even the ones that usually aren't were still great - never really liked Bangers + Mash until I saw Thom going crazy on his own drums while the entire crowd danced away. Notably the setlist of the previous night was markedly more obscure, and while some fans who might consider themselves more hardcore (cough) would have preferred that, I'm not ashamed to say I think ours was much better. The only song from their list I really would have wanted on ours is Climbing Up The Walls.

That said, there were Bad Things. These Bad Things consisted primarily of twats in the crowd, particularly the drunken teenage idiots who thought that the guitar solo in There There was an excuse to go all "WOO HOO FUCKIN' ROCK AND ROOOLL" and spoil it for everyone else by charging through the crowd moshing all the way.

The other Bad Thing was the wait, although this was par for the course, really, and worth it in the end - we had a really good place quite close up facing the centre of the stage. Kudos to Bat For Lashes (the support act) for doing their best but their set was really quite forgettable, even if Natasha Khan is a hell of a lot easier on the eye than Thom Yorke.

Oh, Thom, you crazy crazy man. I'm not sure if his dancing was ironic or genuine, but it was hilarious either way - "How you doing, Jonny?" got a few lols, mainly due to the look of surprise we got from Jonny Greenwood. You'd have to be there but I found it hilarious.

Probably the most magical part of the show was just after Karma Police when the band had just gone off before the second encore - someone started singing the last couple of verses of the song again, and the entire crowd joined in, singing our heads off and waving arms everywhere.

I was surprised (pleasantly) to get songs like Optimistic and 2+2=5 - songs that I had really been hoping they would play but not really expecting them to. With the former in particular, Phil Selway (the drummer) started a drumbeat that I didn't recognise - which got me thinking "ah, hell, obscure number coming up" and then the guitar kicked in. Awesome.

Thom introduced The Bends with "Some of you might know this one...I don't know" - well, he would, wouldn't he? I knew that they were about to play that song because of Thom's soundcheck of his guitar sounded identical to when they played that song at their small January London gig. We also got an equally fantastic performance of My Iron Lung, the only other song from that album.

Bodysnatchers was amazing - who says Radiohead can't get heavy? - Idioteque was superb and I even enjoyed Everything In Its Right Place - a song I usually skip. My favourite moment, though, has to go to 2+2=5 - the entire crowd shrieking "All hail to the thief /All hail to the thief /But I'm not /But I'm not!" and going completely mental was not something that should have been missed. Oh, and Paranoid Android. Karma Police and Paranoid Android? We were blessed. God my throat was sore at the end.

The journey back could have been hell - but thanks to some fence-jumping and Claire's knowledge of the tubes it was pretty efficient, although by the end of it I was knackered. To the friends that I was with - I'm glad I was with you guys. *sniff* You were all awesome and I hope you all had as good a time as I did. I LOVE YOU GUYS-okay, that's enough. I wouldn't have gone with anyone else -well, that's a lie, I would have but I wouldn't have enjoyed myself as much.

(special mention to the rabid Muse fan I was chatting with between songs)

Pure Reason Revolution

Before you read this:

If you have heard of this band and you haven't heard of it from me or you're not one of the people who told me about them consider yourself a brilliant, intellectually balanced, erudite person with muchos respect from me.

If you haven't, shame on you.

Pure Reason Revolution are a charming new-prog rock band that no-one has heard of because no fucker bought their album meaning they were dropped from Sony BMG. Shame on you, world.

See? It isn't only your shitty indie-pop bands that no-one has heard of, you damned indie-kids!

These guys have only released on album so far - The Dark Third, which was released in 2006. Their next album is due this autumn and it is one of the things that I absolutely cannot wait for. Recently, I've really fallen in love with them and am going through a bit of a craze. But before I wax lyrical on the band itself, there's a few things I should mention, specifically how I heard of them.

Back in ye olde 2005, at the tender age of 16, myself and a bunch of friends were supposed to be seeing them in MK at a small club in the Xscape. Now I should point out that I hadn't heard of many bands at this point - I was still largely listening to videogame soundtracks (dark days) and had very little time for real music as I'd prejudged it according to the shit on the radio. Back on topic, we went to the Xscape but alas the club was 18+ and only one of our party was actually 18. Some people were quite upset - not myself particularly, for aforementioned reasons - but the band heard of our plight and came to meet us. In fact, the biggest fan of theirs among us - and thus considerably unhappy - was taken down to KFC to have a chat with them. Plus he got a signed copy of their EP which hadn't yet been released. Needless to say, he was quite a bit happier after that. ANYWAY.

The band were all charming lovely people and gave us all signed posters so we'd have something at least (they petitioned the club to let us in to no avail), but I, like a complete douche, left mine lying on an air-hockey table in the arcade. (D'oh). I wasn't as upset about this as I am now because I didn't actually know whether they were acutally any good or not.

Due to other things in my life happening subsequently I didn't rediscover them, despite being sent their EP, until I found their album in HMV and bought that. The real epiphany came sometime after that - quite recently, maybe four, five months ago. The Dark Third might be described as a "concept album" but whatever the fuck that concept might be about is not clear. Dreaming seems to be a strong theme (the "dark third" refers to the third of our lives we spend sleeping, I think), especially given the abstract nature of the lyrics (not to the same extent as The Mars Volta for example but still not exactly plain in their meaning), and it's quite "spacey". But it's packed with lovely guitar solos, keyboards and violins and a female vocalist/bassist who I'm in love with and...oh just go buy their album and listen to it, it's brilliant.

Unlike a lot of prog bands it's not at all hard to listen to, and the songs don't outstay their welcome. Did I mention the bassist is hot and has an amazing voice?

Yeah, she's hot and has an amazing voice.

I know you are fickle people and believe me if I knew how to put mp3s in the blog I would give you a sample. But since I can't, please just take my word for it.

So, sci-fi, then.

Yeah, it's good shit. And for my first overtly pretentious know-it-all post I'm going to talk about it. I live for the stuff.

Basically I think it's the greatest, most imaginative (and most overlooked) genre as far as films, games, books and even music is concerned.

Now to back up such a breathtakingly arrogant statement.

Most people tend to view sci-fi of all kinds with an air of...if not contempt then as something not to be taken seriously, particularly in Britain. We have "lite" sci-fi shows like Doctor Who that while enjoyable play on the prejudice of it as something absurd and immature. It's not helped by series producer Russell T. Davies, who, apart from not being able to write for shit, fails to try and overcome this and merely adds copious amounts of gay innuendo. Which is far worse in spin-off Torchwood. There are exceptions - episodes written by Stephen Moffat in particular are often clever and sometimes downright frightening, and I'm glad he's taking over the reins of the show from Davies. If you don't believe me compare the episodes "The Shakespeare Code" with "Blink" and you'll see what I mean.

So you have the camp, lighthearted approach of Doctor Who as the yardstick for British sci-fi, and I think that's what shapes the popular attitude to the words "science-fiction". Compare this with Battlestar Galactica, which is frankly the best television I have ever watched. Its success as a series isn't based on rayguns or colourful aliens - let's face it, that's what comes to mind for most people - but the fact that it's a dark, gritty character drama that happens to be set in space and has that as its backdrop. Not a dodgy-eared humanoid alien in sight, just a race of murderous cyborgs that are responsible for the deaths of 20 million human beings. So much the better, because convincing aliens portrayed on screen are a rarity. I hesitate to use the word "realistic" but it's believable and naturalistic and that's what matters, really. It's deep, it's dark and it has some epic space battles that really do kick the shit out of anything that's come before.

Backing up words with deeds...



Much of my argument stems from the fact that with sci-fi the imagination really is the only limit. This can lead to bad things and good. Any other fiction has to be set right here on Earth, has to be set within this or a previous timeframe and is limited as such. With sci-fi you can explore anything and everything - genetics, bioengineering, cybernetics, space-flight, artificial intelligence, contact with an extraterrestrial race, and all the implications that come with these things.

It might seem to be a little hard to apply this to music, but I point at David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix etc who have all covered sci-fi themes in their music at some point. Most people who know me know that my favourite band is Muse and are a little bemused at my obsession. Well, I'm kind of sick of the "standard" themes most rock bands seem to limit themselves to covering - girls, drugs, relationships, suicide etc etc etc - and Muse have songs about genetically engineered puppies, nuclear war, government conspiracies, dystopian futures, oppression, alien contact and the end of the world, which is to me a lot more interesting, although it gets progressively more absurd and hard to take seriously in their last album, Black Holes and Revelations. In Origin of Symmetry and Absolution, their two best albums, however, you get songs that cover this kind of thing in a much more sombre (ok maybe not the right word when applied to songs like Plug In Baby) tone while maintaining kickass guitar and piano solos.



I fuckin' love the space battle and radar on the big screen.

(Yeah, I was at that gig. No, I cannot resist mentioning that fact.)

This is becoming one long post and it is nearly half-one in the morning, so I'm going to cop out and put in another YouTube embed - this time "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" by Blue Oyster Cult. Prog rock + sci-fi = AWESOME



To be (possibly) continued.

The last episode of Battlestar Galactica...

...was mindblowing. Seriously.

Such an intense episode, and the end was so emotionally draining. I'm not going to spoil it, but my God, when you get that ending after so much...

I can't go on without spoiling it, sadly.

And now I've got to wait for another goddam year! Sigh.

Anyway, the exams are now finally over, and I have lots of time to do nice things. I am sure I will post lots more to this blug in that time.

Goodnight.

(note: this refers to the finale of the first half of season four, not the half-arsed piece of crap that was the series Grand Finale)

The First Of Many...

...I hope.

I don't have anything to say at the moment, so enjoy some YouTube embeds.



Rawberry, anyone?



The (funnier) sequel.



Drums make for AWESOME SPACE BATTLES. (Spoilers for BS Galactica Season 3)



This is my favourite man in music doing really sexy things with a guitar.

(I was there, man)