Going Back To My Routes: Intro 10 Oct 2013 This is a set of posts about the Pokemon series of games - one long post for each Pokemon generation. I wanted to write about something my sons cared about…
Pokémon X And Why 9 Jan 2013 GET UR FROAK ON While most of my online acquaintances were geeking out today at the thought of a new David Bowie album, our house was far more excited by…
Lost Property Office 2-8: Annoying Axl Rose 28 Aug 2013 This week in the Lost Property Office you finally, the interview you have all been waiting for. The Nabob himself of this scene, Tom Ewing, a man who tells a…
Skylanders Reprise 17 Apr 2013 My earlier Skylanders post - about the parallels between the smash game's Physical-Digital interfaces and the ongoing vinyl revival - was written without having actually played much of it. I…
The Freaky Trigger Movie Poll 2019: #20 - #11 1 Feb 2020 Here we go into the top twenty. At this point, those of you who have a big picture view of this kind of thing can probably do the maths and…
The Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll 2018: #10-#1 23 Jan 2019 "Bonjour dudes, it's me, the Lascaux Cave Paintings, specifically the one where a bull with a spear through its arse is goring a bloke to death while a chicken on…
The Freaky Trigger Readers' Poll 2015: #30-#21 8 Jan 2016 "Good morning readers, I am a humble cyanobacteria from the Paleoproterozoic Era! I am responsible for the First Great Mass Extinction Event around 2 billion years ago, when I farted…
About the Author
Tom invented Freaky Trigger on a bus journey in the mid-90s. A page about what he's up to can be found here
20 Jul 2007
I semi-remember just two lines from the NME’s (Charlie Shaar Murray’s?) review of “Armed Forces” (secret unused title “Emotional Fascism”). One was that one of the other songs resembled ELP “jamming in the bottom of an oil drum”! The other — more germane to this post, as well as being true — is that “with […]
29 Oct 2010
#641, 3rd February 1990 Sinead O’Connor is one of the finest song interpreters not just because she thinks hard about the material and the feelings locked in it, but because she’s so good at placing songs into a situation. A great example of this is her version of “Chiquitita”, warm and homely where ABBA’s is […]
11 Jan 2016
I wrote a thing for here about David Bowie and how I felt about him and what he meant to me, but then Pitchfork kindly decided they wanted to run it, so it’s below. (Original title: He Could Be Dead, He Could Be Not, He Could Be You). And to any other good pieces I […]
13 Aug 2008
#428, 18th November 1978 “Rat Trap” is billed – in the Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles, no less – as the first punk No.1. I couldn’t recall it – my memories of the Rats themselves were vague; Geldof I knew for later good works. So I approached “Rat Trap” cold but with a frisson of definite […]
23 Apr 2000
My first encounter with the exotic was on the Magic Mill at Thorpe Park, a South-East England theme park which from appearances had originally been based around a cramped zoo or city-farm set-up. At some point in the late 70s it had seemingly panicked, though, and parked itself up in order to survive. With its […]
1 Jan 2003
101. THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS – ‘My Elastic Eye’: ‘It sounds exactly like an elastic eye!’ said Fred S. I scoffed, but you know what? – it does! Though maybe more a clockwork one – but the wobbly fuzz-bass still sounds like it’s looking, even probing the track for something. Every music-box noise here is luxurious […]
2 May 2008
#389, 2nd June 1976 I was aware of this song long before I heard it – as a young boy it was quoted at me by my Dad should I ever object to tidying my room. Since my room was rarely tidy, I became very familiar with the central notion of “No Charge”. Like my Dad, I […]
