FT
2 May 2013
Club Action returns THIS SATURDAY!
Join DJ Chlorine & The Barnet Ape for a celebration of the best of German technobosh, Italo-disco, Russian girlpop, Swiss post-punk, Irish jigs, Serbian turbo-folk, Spanish holiday hits, Scandinavian hair metal, French house and of course UK Garage (and everything else that could possibly score douze points).
Special guest DJ duties fall to DJ MAXIMATOR who owns at least 7 different versions of Ça Plane Pour Moi and may well play them all at once.
WHEN: This Saturday! 4th May 2013, 8pm-1am
WHERE: New venue! Downstairs at The Hideaway Bar, 114 Junction Road, Archway (nearest tubes Archway/Tufnell Park, 390 & 134 buses both run all night)
WHO: 2 Unlimited, ABBA, Ace of Base, A-Ha, Alcazar, Alizée, Annie, Boney M, Björk, Black Box, Bucks Fizz, Cascada, Daft Punk, Europe, Falco, Giorgio Moroder, Girls Aloud, Infernal, Justice, Kraftwerk, Katy B, Lindstrøm, Lordi, Lulu, Margaret Berger, O-Zone, Plastic Bertrand, Praga Khan, Propaganda, Roxette, Röyksopp, Ruslana, Scooter, So Solid Crew, Stardust, tAtU, Teddybears STHLM, Todd Terje, Tomcraft and of course Yello.
PLUS: Early arrivals can expect a small amount of ORGAFUN (er, mp3s permitting…)
katstevens in FT /New York London Paris Munich • 1 Comment
1 May 2013
#714, 10th December 1994
Does every Beatles need a Stones? East 17′s manager Tom Watkins may have come to think so. His group poked their noses into the charts before Take That, but found themselves defined against Gary and the boys, and showed every sign of revelling in it. Take That looked back to disco; East 17 knew their way around a rave. Take That were a five-pack of flavours; East 17 moved as a crew. Take That flexed for your gaze but stayed at arms length; Tony Mortimer wrote songs about eating you out. North v south, cheeky v lairy, smooth v rough – playbook stuff, just the way the pop press like it. One effect of the division is that Take That moved onto ballad territory long before their rivals – East 17 always had a place for mid-paced bump’n'grind, but avoided the real weepies.
Until now. This is East 17 doing a slowie, and really going for it, piling on the trimmings of balladry until the song creaks. To this day it shows up on Christmas compilation albums because it’s got Christmas bells on – the clanging chimes of emotional doom. But it’s got everything else on too (except drums). Something about its shameless blowout ambition suits the season, though: all the overdriven heartbreak of a Christmas Day soap packed into five wailing minutes. By its final choruses “Stay Another Day” is piling the bells and strings and multitracked pleading chorales on like marzipan and icing, finding a space partway between Cliff Richard and Jim Steinman. more »
Tom in FT /Popular • 46 Comments
30 April 2013
Just a quick urgent note to say that Freaky Trigger’s esteemed CHEESE CORRESPONDENT Marna made this^^^ — and that the closing date for pledge contributions to fund a printed edition is Friday pub-time.
(For details run film, and then go here).
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • No Comments
26 April 2013
Introduction
New series! Recently I have been suffering from insomnia, and to give a sense of routine to my bedtime (which should help) I’m trying to read a short amount before I go to bed every night. To get me into the swing of things I’m reading one Canto per night of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, in the Oxford World’s Classics Edition translated by CH Sisson.
Because I am a pie-eyed narcissist incapable of having an experience without wanting to blog about it, I’m going to write about this. The only rule is that I have to wait until the next day to do so, and I’m not allowed to check the book. So only the memorable impressions will get through. You can follow the individual posts on Tumblr but I’ll post “digest” versions here too – with comments! I already know I’ve got some completely wrong impressions about Dante and Beatrice (for instance) though I’ll get a chance to correct those.
And that ends the introduction. more »
Tom in FT /The Brown Wedge • 6 Comments
25 April 2013
or “Lytton must be exterminated when it is convenient”
… being a show-by-show TARDIS-esque (ie in effect random) exploration of Doctor Who Soup to Nuts, begun at LJ’s diggerdydum community, and crossposted at FT.
In which 5IVE and disgruntled chums help a revenant but unrepentent DAVROS to infect his multitudinous metal brood with MORGELLONS the MORVELLAN DISCO VIRUS, as a reward for getting him out of jail. Or something.
A notoriously very-hard-to-follow DO-YOU-SEE allegory for the utter lack of honour among the galactically villainous. Doesn’t help that from the off it’s a switchback of mistaken identity via doubles: meaning that coppers and soldiers and even daleks are not who you immediately think they are. Doesn’t help that I watched it more than a year ago, before various distractions intervened and derailed me, and haven’t revisited (bcz my “method” does not allow me to). So instead of discussing the plot I’m going to bore on abt the Daleks, turning the tables you might say hohoho *sigh*
The setting: two places and two time (Butler’s Wharf and a prison ship in space; 1984 and THE UNSPECIFIED FUTURE ) have been superglued together by a time-corridor. The prison ship is under attack by a space cruiser.
The upshot: more »
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 1 Comment
18 April 2013
The Guardian, aware that we are living in a country down to its last thruppence ha’penny, is thinking about the finances of the poor gig going kid. Look, they have a video and everything to tell you how to save money:
As you can see the secret of cutting the cost of gig tickets is to go to gigs that took place nineteen years ago. If you fancy seeing the Manic’s in Hull in 1994, or Mansun at the Kilburn National, well – you’ll be quids in. I am sure this is excellent advice, otherwise why would you advertise the piece which such out of date tickets. Of course back then I too had my own methods of getting into gigs for free, which I can shamefully reveal now… more »
Pete Baran in FT • 9 Comments
17 April 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 heard the excitement of my two sons and – cue swell of music – that was enough for me.
Also, as it turns out, there wasn’t much of it to play. By the end of our holiday they were on Chapter 14 of Skylanders Giants, at “25% complete”. Naively I imagined there might be 50 or so chapters. Not so! This is a platform game, and “complete” means that you’ve collected and unlocked every last gewgaw, not that you’ve got through the story. In fact there are 16 chapters and that’s your lot. A dozen hours gameplay, I’d guess, and that’s with a 6 year old at the helm. more »
Tom in FT • 2 Comments
12 April 2013
This is a project gradually to read and discuss the hundred or so books for children written between the mid-50s and his death in 2010 by disgraced author William Mayne, starting with a rereading of the 30-odd that I own or know. I talked a little about his downfall at the close of this post from last year, and will likely touch on it again. I’ve now re-read a further four, including his very first.
Follow the Footsteps (1953)
(cover image: William Stobbs)
“It doesn’t matter if you get it wrong,” said Caroline. “If we ask Daddy something he always tells us the long way round, which isn’t interesting at all. But he does try.”
“I can’t understand him sometimes, even,” said Andrew,
“That’s something” said Mr Feaste. “Intention better than fulfilment–net result fulfilment. Strange, what?”
As of the early 50s, the genre — established by E. Nesbit, developed by Arthur Ransome, routinised by Enid Blyton, Malcolm Saville and literally dozens of others — was quite tired and predictable: the middleclass children of a family, a dated shade of perkily bland, and often curiously under-examined, all RP and private schooling, arrive in a rural or otherwise characterful locale, and find a treasure, foil a crime or solve a puzzle. Mayne’s first published book for kids doesn’t much break with the pattern (certainly less than you’d expect if you know his later work), but the beginnings of the break are visible. more »
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 4 Comments
30 March 2013
Doctor Who: The Bells Of St John
This one came off as a remix of a few previous companion-intro episodes. Disembodied intelligence and London landmark from Rose, whimsical Doctor and companion-as-kid backstory (well, sort of) from Eleventh Hour, and hardass businesswoman villain plus everyday-menace plot from the Adipose one. more »
Tom in FT • 7 Comments
Tom linked to this at Blue Lines, but not everyone is on Tumblr. More here.
For the puzzled: Japanese schoolgirls re-enacting magical martial arts moves from manga, photographing and uploading them. For the record: AMAZING.
(<—I love the pile of schoolbags.)
pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør in FT • 2 Comments
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