I Hate Music – FreakyTrigger https://freakytrigger.co.uk Lollards in the high church of low culture Tue, 12 Jan 2016 15:50:54 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 Quantum Leap Year https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2008/02/quantum-leap-year Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:48:35 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/quantum-leap-year/ We’re not really sure what happened. This week the Lollards went back in time to 2007 allegedly trying to rescue Tanya. Tanya herself called FT Towers yesterday asking for an explanation. I didn’t have one and then something strange happened last night…

While I was tackling a technical glitch on our servers that was failing to admit the existence of the 29th of February, I got an alarming call from Tanya that was suddenly cut off by what sounded like… no it couldn’t have been… Anyway, we haven’t heard back from her yet, but will keep you posted.

Update
There is something happening in our archive feature (below). Freaky Trigger has never had any posts from 1981 before. Could it be that Tanya Headon has come unstuck in time??

Later update
We’ll be keeping an eye on Tanya’s I Hate 1981 diary for new posts

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IHM Lyric Watch – Robyn: Be Mine https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/ihm-lyric-watch-robyn-be-mine https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/ihm-lyric-watch-robyn-be-mine#comments Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:00:38 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/ihm-lyric-watch-robyn-be-mine/ be-mine.jpgI have already catalogued the extreme and somewhat unpleasant transformation of Robyn from novelty frog chart act to novelty Swedish pop star here. But it has been brought to my attention that even though she can be ridiculed for her po-faced personality, blonde Hitler haircut and a wardrobe which has at least two DIFFERENT hot-dog costumes in it, her lyrics are even more disturbing. Take recent mope-a-long a disco-beat* track Be Mine.

EXHIBIT A: ‘Cause you never were, and you never will be mine
No, you never were, and you never will be mine

How sure can she be that said object of her affection NEVER will be hers? Remember, she is an international pop star now and to some people this fact, and any handy financial change which comes out of it, may counter their dislike for a lady who looks like her face is made of latex. Clearly Robyn has either the ability to see into the future, or has put out a contract on said beau. Unless there can be another reason. To whit, M’Lud I bring you Exhibit B.

EXHIBIT B: I saw you at the station,
You had your arm around what’s-her-name
She had on that scarf I gave you
And you got down to tie her laces

HOLD ON. There is nothing romantic about tying someones laces up for them. Brushing away hair in a devil may care fashion = Romantic. Laying down coat in Sir Walter Raleigh fashion = Romantic (albeit stupid, as even Elizabeth I would not be drowned by a small puddle). Doing up someones shoelaces for them = other person either suffers from dementia OR IS A TINY FAT-FINGERED CHILD.

And suddenly Robyn’s certainty in EXHIBIT A is clear. Her man has tastes in relationships which are outside of the societal norms (though admittedly ones which are routinely ignored in pop music EH Mr Glitter, Mr Wyman & Mr J.King). Whilst this developmentally challenged child may be disguised as Robyn in her scarf, the man will clearly soon be hounded into a Swedish jail, where Pass The Soap means something quite different to what it does in an English jail**. It would almost make me feel sorry for Robyn, if she wasn’t a super-evolved Swedish frog hellbent on world chart domination and the end of civilization as we know it. Which would also explain why he never would be hers, because he, and the rest of us, would be dead.

*Why is it that only dance music made by people from Scandinavian countries are ever described as glacial. They have glaciers in New Zealand too. And Crowded House were REALLY REALLY boring.

**Swedes, for all their popstar faults, are fastidiously clean. Even in prison.

(Thanks to Emma for bringing this to my attention)

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IHM Lyric Watch- Kate’n’Ash – Foundations https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/ihm-lyric-watch-katenash-foundations https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/ihm-lyric-watch-katenash-foundations#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:07:27 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/ihm-lyric-watch-katenash-foundations/ katnash.jpgArtistic collaborations are a bit of a mixed bag for me. Clearly Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney making Say Say Say was a black day in my book (though not as black as it might have been in the seventies), BUT it did mean that there were not two separate solo Jackson and McCartney slabs of torture on the shelves. That said when two musical acts collaborate the result can often be exponentially worse than just their ordinary solo output. Think of the collaboration between Queen, David Bowie and Vanilla Ice to see what I mean.

That said even I was surprised to discover that prog pop, washing machine orgasming, all-round musical loony Kate Bush had decided to collaborate with ten year old band Ash (that is the age of the members of Ash). It did not seem to fit her usual method of evil operation, collaborating with a pop-punk band. But I suppose when Charlotte Hatherley left there was a hole for a nusto lady, and Ash got the whole Snickers. Which may explain why their work as a band sounds absolutely nothing like either Kate Bush’s solo work or Ash’s yawnomatic punky workouts (how can you really be a pop punk group with a fat drummer anyway).

Case in point: Foundations. Look at this lyric and tell me what is wrong:

Then I’ll use that voice that you find annoyin’ and say something like
“yeah, intelligent input, darlin’, why don’t you just have another beer then?”

That’s right it suggests that Kate Bush has a voice that DOESN’T sound annoying. If that was the case, why doesn’t she bloody use it? No, I have heard a lot of horrible Kate Bush records, some in which she puts on hilarious accents, or even does an Elvis impression. And all of these “voices” sound as bad as each other.

Just look at Wuthering Heights – of course Heathcliffe knew it was you, no-one else would stand on the top of a moor and screech like that. Who can forget in Cloudbusting when she “just knew that something good is going to happen”. Initially I thought she was referring to the end of the song, but unfortunately that just hasten along the shower of shit that was the Utah Saints to loop this asinine untruth over and over again. So whilst Kate’n’Ash sound markedly different to both sets of solo careers, the key point is that this attempt to make some sub-Lily Allen twelve year old stream of consciousness tosh shows that no matter how terrible something is, there is always the capacity to do something worse!

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Shooting Fish In A Barrel Department: Biffy Clyro Division https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2008/01/shooting-fish-in-a-barrel-department-biffy-clyro-division https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2008/01/shooting-fish-in-a-barrel-department-biffy-clyro-division#comments Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:53:50 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2008/01/shooting-fish-in-a-barrel-department-biffy-clyro-division/ Biffy Clyro, Scottish emo pioneers* think that just because they have a stupid name that they are same from me. Perhaps they think that by being so awesomely bad on purpose, that I won’t bother to criticise their audience proof music. But seriously guys, red rag meet bull. They have named their new since Who’s Got A Match?.

Guess what. I’ve got a match…

whogot_a_match.jpg

Your single cover: Hipgnosis after a hip operation**.
Your beards: the pubic hair shavings of Emerson, Lake and Palmer stuck on Clement Freud.
Your music: Fugazi played by dyslexic bees with Busted with a sore throat.
Your lyrics: A grumpy dyslexic Pam Ayres (I wish I’d looked after my beard)
Your career: The biggest waste of time since the Pre-Cambrian era.

Is that enough matches? Any left, I’d be more than happy to toss it on a pile of your records. Which is ironic because your records are a pile of toss. Going quiet, loud, quiet is not exactly NEW.

*Thinking about emo pioneers cannot help make me smile. Just the idea of Hitler haired pantywaists being eaten by bears in the mid-west whilst their womenfolks stripey tights attract the local Native American population for revenge for the entire career of Sunny Day Real Estate…

**Its pretty bad for a modern single cover, but admittedly doesn’t quite reach some of these heights.

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Taking The Temperature (OUT OF MY BRAIN) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/taking-the-temperature-out-of-my-brain https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/taking-the-temperature-out-of-my-brain#respond Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:12:27 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/taking-the-temperature-out-of-my-brain/ I am not one to mock the afflicted, unless the afflicted are
a) a wonky eyed singer*
b) a one armed drummer
c) a rhombus faced popstrel
d) the blind – when the blind in question are Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder
e) actually I’m probably going to run out of letters when I get to…
z) deaf composers

And even then I won’t have had a chance to get on to junkie members of Wet Wet Wet. So yes, I am one to mock the afflicted. Which makes me feel a touch better about this story, where a young American lady had the misfortune of having seizures every time she heard Sean Paul’s Temperature. So what, I initially thought, I have seizures whenever I see a busker (admittedly the seizing in question is of their poorly tuned guitars, and I tend to batter them with it, but its the same KIND OF thing). But reading on I thought I saw a glimmer of hope for my particular situation. What if my hatred of music was just something wrong with MY brain, and not infact a failing of all music ever. What if I could have a piece of my brain removed, I could then fit in with the normal people and go to Razorlight gigs**. All it would take is a removal of a three inch piece of my temporal lobe.

HOLD ON! I’m not getting three inches of my brain taken out just so I can like Sean Paul. In the first instance I don’t really want brain surgery for such a trivial thing. But mainly because I suggest I would need to take out considerably more than three inches of MY brain to make Mr Paul’s soft ragga chattering even vague palatable. Instead I would much rather consider the option of sewing my ears up. But all of this would be predicate don the idea that my view of music as the root of all evil was in some way wrong. Which it isn’t. Consider this quote from the supposedly afflicted Stacey Gayle about Sean Paul:

“I think his music is awesome,”
she said.“Now I can see why everyone liked this song.”

If it takes REMOVING PART OF YOUR BRAIN to appreciate Sean Paul, it suggests to me that Sean Paul is in fact shit. Rare condition my arse. Ms Gayle had seen the truth, her body had rebelled but the MAN tried to hide her so gave her a lobotomy. And they say we live in a free society***.

*A kind of think wonky eyed singer at that who could not foresee with his wonky eye that biggerst band in world + secret gig in tiny shop = disaster.

**OK, my fantasy was probably going to far there. Even people who GO to Razorlight gigs hate Razorlight.

***NOT A FREE JAZZ SOCIETY!

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IHM Lyric Watch: Sugababes – Ugly https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/ihm-lyric-watch-sugababes-ugly https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/ihm-lyric-watch-sugababes-ugly#comments Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:11:33 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/ihm-lyric-watch-sugababes-ugly/ Yes I am back, and thank you for all your concern. I have been undercover in the Internet trying to destroy Radiohead’s In Rainbows from the inside. Unfortunately whilst in there I ran foul of the Master Control Program and lets just say I take corners a lot sharper now on my motorbike. Anyway, as a way of breaking back into the new year, I thought I would revive the Lyric Watch, and what better track to start with than the Sugababes Ugly? Now I’m not going to follow the obvious line on this track. I went there with Xtina and her wrongheaded single Beautiful. Yes it is a horridly self-indulgent ballad from a band who can afford plenty of stylists and therefore should not be harping on about their own inner beauty when people can paint exterior beauty on them. Or if not beauty, feathers and plants (even I don’t understand what is going on in the Change video – except it reminds me a lot of the end of Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain where Hugh Jackman is killed by a tree growing out of his gut. I for one would like to see Heidi Sugababe with a Dutch Elm growing out of her midrift.)

No, my query is this opening self-pitying lyric from the song:
When I was 7
They said I was strange
I noticed that my eyes and hair weren’t the same

Now I looked in the mirror this morning and was happy with my general look and demeanour, and particularly happy that my hair and my eyes were quite different. I considered how odd, if not strange, I would look if our of my eye-holes there was an outgrowth of predominantly keratin based proteins. Or indeed how weird it might be if instead of my luscious locks, I had an excess of vitreous humour or hundreds of beady little goggle holes. Here, let’s compare and contrast the cover of said Ugly single.

The original.
actual-sugagbabes.jpg

What if their eyes were made of hair?
hairy-sugababes.jpg

Now if their hair were made of eyes.
eye-sugagbabes.jpg

Two of these are considerably STRANGER than the others. Some may even say Ugly (though the eyes do just look a bit like a bubble perm on Mutya). Still since the track has eighteen writing credits they probably all did a word each and didn’t worry about the sense.

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TANYA’S FEMINIST CRUSADE (against Shed Seven) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/tanyas-feminist-crusade-against-shed-seven https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/tanyas-feminist-crusade-against-shed-seven#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:44:48 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/tanyas-feminist-crusade-against-shed-seven/ For obvious reasons I tend to avoid the Guardian on a Friday. Not only does it contain the Film and Music section, it has Beth Ditto’s advice column. I have a bit of advice for Beth Ditto myself actually – keep on eatin’ sister! Not only is your confidence and style an inspiration to plus-size women worldwide, you can’t sing when there’s a cake in your mouth.

Anyway I bought it this morning because of the free Eden Project blueprints. I am very keen to collect blueprints of venues where bands like Radiohead play “unusual” gigs – and after all who would look askance at a truck packed with ‘fertiliser’ being driven to the Eden Project? I am amazed so much fuss is being made about Radiohead continuing their successful ‘pay what you like for it’ campaign. It’s nothing new, after all. The last time my spies looked in Music and Video Exchange, copies of Hail To The Thief were going for £3, £2.50, £2, £1.50 and all the way down to ten pence.

On returning home I quickly put the Film and Music bit to its proper use – lining the cage of my pet rat. As I carefully laid it down so John Harris’ face would be right where Chapman does his business, a paragraph suddenly jumped out at me. “York, the promoter, doesn’t see a demand for bands with “no artistic merit”; he mentions Echobelly and Sleeper.” Fantastic! Someone has seen the light! Who is this visionary? But as I read on my blood began to boil. Because according to the article the bands who DO possess artistic merit are Kula Shaker, Dodgy, and Shed Seven.

KULA SHAKER.

DODGY.

and SHED SEVEN.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting Echobelly and Sleeper weren’t anything other than awful. But when Dante descended into his inferno and saw Satan in the form of a three-headed demon encased in a pit of ice chewing on sinners for all eternity, it’s a fair bet that heads numbers one two and three were Crispian Mills, Rick Witter and the cunt in the hat from Dodgy.

Now I normally stay out of the realm of gender politics. But given that you’d need a supercollider the size of Switzerland to scientifically detect the particles’ worth of difference in “artistic merit” between Echobelly and Shed Seven, might I suggest that there is another rather more obvious difference between the bands this promoter considers worthwhile and the ones he doesn’t? I’d say something about the number of tits in the band but that’s not conclusive either. Anyway my suspicion is that what this guy is actually thinking is “Nobody’s going to pay to see Sleeper and Echobelly cos those birds are getting on a bit.” This is a disgrace – stop pandering to the Nuts-reading neanderthals, even if they are the only people stupid enough to pay money for a Dodgy reunion. EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES NOW. Or, in this case, EQUAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALL OPPORTUNITIES NOW.

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Tanya’s Music News Round Up!!! https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/tanyas-music-news-round-up https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/tanyas-music-news-round-up#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:41:40 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/tanyas-music-news-round-up/ In my never-ending battle against the evils of music, I occasionally come across allies who often are unaware of how helpful they are to me. Take the US Immigration services who have decided that The Pipettes are TOO DANGEROUS to be allowed into the US. Or at least mucked up their visa. This is the same US Immigration service who were equally sniffy about letting in big mouthed satan spawn Lily Allen in recently. It is possible that the problem is that both acts have put MUSICIAN down as their profession on the visa application, which I believe flags up the FBI, CIA and the fictitious CTU as much as if you wrote TERRORIST on the form. The downside is of course that this means the Pipettes will still be knocking around in the UK with the gawky glasses and songs which sound like a deaf bloke heard the Shirelles forty years ago and had just got round to copying them. Good on the US with their WAR AGAINST TERRIBLE MUSIC.

On the other hand my archnememises in Radiohead have yet another wacky plan to give them column inches. Apparently singing like a strangled swan and playing miserable songs with sixth form political lyrics is not enough for them anymore. Apparently they are attempting to bring down the economy of the western world. HOW? By allowing people to pay what you want on their website for their new album “In Rainbow”*. The wags. That is bound to cause a financial crisis undermining all that is sacred and good int he record industry. I am not holding my breath though, its not the first time Radiohead have toyed with me and my project. Imagine my rejoicing when they announced “Pop Is Dead”. I thought this was a true statement rathe rthan a scratchy half-arsed knock off of “Creep”. So I certainly don’t trust them now.

I even went to the website. Look, what I pay is up to me. No, really. Its really up to me. Yeah, but you can’t put negative figures in the payment box can you? Bastards. I want them to pay for the pain of Hail To The Thief.

*Why anyone would want to buy a concept album about Zippy Bungle and Geoffrey sung in a depressing whine over the sound of an electric guitar being fed through a coffee grinder is beyond me.

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Tanya’s Hot Date With… Sean Kingston https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/09/tanyas-hot-date-with-sean-kingston https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/09/tanyas-hot-date-with-sean-kingston#comments Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:52:48 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/09/tanyas-hot-date-with-sean-kingston/ Online dating is a wonderful thing…

SeanK35:
Sensitive young man into eating, singing like a girl and the outdoors would like to meet an ugly girl, any age, any race just NOT BEAUTIFUL.

TanyaIHM:
Hi Seany, tell me more about yrself. I am in my early thirties and like relaxing, silent movies and the countryside (as long as there is not a bloody music festival going on). What do you like?

SeanK35
Hey Tanya. You sound lovely. But can you tell me if you are attractive? I have had a bad experience with a beautiful girl you see, and frankly it made me want to kill myself so I would appreciate a photo or maybe a description.

TanyaIHM
Sorry, I don’t send photos but it is funny that beautiful girls made you feel suicidal. There is a song in the charts CALLED Beautiful Girls which makes ME feel suicidal. So i think we could easily bond over that! If you could let me know what you consider to be beautiful, I could probably see if I fit in that category and see if you would still fancy me. Let’s meet up.

SeanK35
I find cheerleaders, bobbysoxers and anyone who dresses out of the nineteen fifties to be particularly alluring, but actually I am not fussy. It is funny that you hate that song, but we can talk about it when we meet. What music do you like. Please send a photo, and then we can meet up.

TanyaIHM
Here is a photo. I would not normally do this but hey, you seem really sensitive and lovely.
Kate Nash
We should meet up. How about Ed’s Easy Diner, because it is unlikely that you will see any bobbysoxers there. We can talk about my musical tatses there, they are quite niche. Look forward to seeing you Seany.

SeanK35
You really are ugly. Hooray. I will meet you in this Ed’s place. Its a date. I’ll be the slightly chubby one who sounds like Boy George.

—-
From: TanyaIHM [itstanyabitch@hotmail.com]
To: Britney Spears [itsbritneybitch@hotmail.com]
Hey Britney. You know I said I would destroy your career and you didn’t believe me. Well, now what do you think?

Anyway – Bitch (where did you get THAT idea from), I am willing to give you one final chance. I would like you to meet this bloke Sean for a date for me. If you could wear any of your outfits from the Baby One More Time video. Oh and brush up a but as you have been looking a bit rough recently. Leave the kids at how, one caterwauling baby voiced loser will be enough. Also if you could take along this bag. It contains cyanide tablets, a gun, a all access pass to the Canary Wharf tower and a free tube pass. Cheers.

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Tanya’s Who Do They Think They Are: 1: Robyn https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/09/tanyas-who-do-they-think-they-are-1-robyn https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/09/tanyas-who-do-they-think-they-are-1-robyn#comments Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:25:37 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/09/tanyas-who-do-they-think-they-are-1-robyn/ Robyn NowEveryone knows that the hatchet faced Swede has not burst fully formed on to the UK pop scene with her number one hit “With Every Heartbeat”. Indeed she has been flogging the song for about a year, with the involvement of DJ Kleerup, who seems to have misunderstood the meaning of his own name by leaving Robyn’s vocals on the track. That’s not clearing up! But any cursory look at the strangely Bibi Andersson-esque singer will note she is no spring chicken. And those of you with nothing better to do will remember her previous dalliance with the UK charts. Yes hers was the thoroughly anonymous voice on “Show Me Love” back in 1999 – the song which spoiled the Lukas Moodysson film Fucking Amal for me. Fucking Robyn!

But yes yes, you say. Everyone knows this. Her tedious tale of how she was dropped by her label due to musical differences (they wanted her music to sound different* One assumes better). But very few people know of her even earlier career in pop. robyn-then.jpgYes “Show Me Love” was not her first time in the UK charts. Indeed so horrific was her first chart success that most sane people have obliterated it from their memories. But it was indeed her, with a radical make-over, who sang “Halfway Down The Stairs” in 1977. This weedy sounding Top Ten hit was an attempt to gain sympathy for the fact that she was born green and tiny, and was lucky to be allowed to live at all (what with the Swedish authorities backdoor eugenics programme). This sappy song hit the top ten and pretty much scarred everyone who ever heard it. And so now, whenever I hear Robyn in her Konichiwa Britches, I cannot help but think of this rubbish A A Milne poem put to evil music. With Every Heartbeat? Not until that heartbeat stops.

*As do I. I’d prefer it to not sound like music. Or be music.

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Take A K Away: MIKA vs MIA (A Tanya Competition) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/take-a-k-away-mika-vs-mia-a-tanya-competition https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/take-a-k-away-mika-vs-mia-a-tanya-competition#comments Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:39:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/take-a-k-away-mika-vs-mia-a-tanya-competition/ I got mail. Well a comment from someone calling him/herself TamilTyger after my comments about Mika’s probable blindness*:

Dear Tanya, this is a bit of a cheap shot, even for you. Not to mention the fact that whilst that is a terrible cover, I cannot believe you did not notice the covers to MIA’s albums whilst in the MI section of Virgin Megastore. Surely they are much, much worse.

And she always wears dark sunglasses like she is blind.

Whilst I stick by my assessment of the MIKA album cover, TamilTyger does have a point. Of course I did not notice it in the MI section of the Virgin Megastore, because to enter such a place would be putting myself, and everyone at mortal danger of me going on a killing spree. And as we know, presence of dark glasses does not mean that you are actually blind (cf the actually just colour blind Stevie Wonder).

Nevertheless, TamilTyger does have a point. As such I present you with a dangerous competition. I suggest you don dark glasses (or borrow MIA’s or indeed Stevie Wonder’s) before clicking through.

One of these album covers is not actually by MIA. Which one. a) b) or c)?

a) a) b) columbo1.jpg c)arular.jpg

Answers in the comments box. Winners will get to pick an artist for me to critically consider.

*Another obvious point I missed comes courtesy of the lyrics to Grace Kelly:

“Why can’t I be like Grace Kelly”

Er, you’re a curly haired Lebanese bloke, rather than a porcelain skinned Hollywood blonde beauty-cum-European Princess. That’s why it is unlikely that you will ever be cast in the female lead role of a remake of “To Catch A Thief” Mika.

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What Album Covers Are Really Trying To Tell Us: 5: MIKA – Life In Cartoon Motion https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-5-mika-life-in-cartoon-motion https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-5-mika-life-in-cartoon-motion#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:16:42 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-5-mika-life-in-cartoon-motion/ Mika is a pop wunderkind isn’t he? Not content with “trying a little Freddie” in his intercontental balistic miss of a single Grace Kelly, he is now – er – trying a little Freddie in his Fat Bottom Girls rip “Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)”. Now I’m not a big girl, which means I should be safe from his grasping hands. Though actually he’s probably trying a little Freddie in his sexual proclivities as well. You don’t have to be gay to rip-off the Scissor Sisters, but it helps.

But his sexuality is not what the cover of Life In Cartoon Motion is trying to tell us. Look at its poorly scrawled jumble of second hand Sesame Street link sections. Possibly you can hear the chimes of the “One Two Three Four Five…” song. (I rather imagine the digital countdown of a classic movie style bomb but each to their own).
mika-life-in-cartoon-m-398862.jpg
But despite being poorly drawn there is an awful lot going on. Perhaps the man on the sofa is trying to tell us to sit down before we unleash this awful weapon on our ears. The little girl in the party dress may be hinting on Mika’s inner self, screaming and screaming until we are sick. The cogs poking out from behind the rainbow stripes may be suggesting that underneath this colourful package is a machinelike marketing campaign allowing him “to try a little Freddie” for the rest of his life. And even slipping in a little self effacing picture of himself on the side looking for all the world like the offspring of Brian May and Anita Dobson (and maybe a little Freddie).

But for once we are looking too closely. We need to take this album cover as a whole, and its secret message soon becomes more than clear. The cover of Life In Cartoon Motion can only have one meaning, and it is one which is glaringly obvious.

Mika is blind.

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IHM Health & Safety watch: THE WATERBOYS “The Whole Of The Moon” https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/ihm-health-and-safety-watch-the-whole-of-the-moon https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/ihm-health-and-safety-watch-the-whole-of-the-moon#comments Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:56:33 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/08/ihm-health-and-safety-watch-the-whole-of-the-moon/ Mike Scott was not a clever man. For instance, he seems unaware that all he has to do to see the whole of the moon, rather than a crescent, is wait a couple of weeks.

However, the object of his affections in this song is perhaps even more stupid than him. The lyrics – while couched in the visionary allegory one might expect from a man who has “heard the big music” and so “will never be the same” – paint a pretty shocking picture.

“I wandered out in the world for years – you just stayed in your room.”

OK, Mike’s crush is a bit idle, but am I really being fair in calling them an idiot? Maybe they have good reason for staying indoors.

“I saw the rain-dirty valley. You saw Brigadoon!”

Ah, there, you see? It’s wet out and there’s an old film on BBC2. It seems that it’s Mike who’s the foolish one! BUT WAIT.

What happens if – because of the rain – the TV goes on the blink?

“With a torch in your pocket
And the wind at your heels
You climbed up the ladder”

FOR GODS SAKE – have we learned nothing from Rod Hull?

“And you know how it feels
To reach too high
Too soon”

NO! Reader I can hardly watch.

“I spoke about Wings
You just flew”

Ouch. So there you have it. While Mike Scott was trapping on about Paul McCartney his beloved was involved in a tragic aerial-repair accident on a windy night. No wonder he quit town and became a fisherman.

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Bible Of Badness Special: 1 Corinthians 15:55 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/07/bible-of-badness-special-1-corinthians-1555 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/07/bible-of-badness-special-1-corinthians-1555#comments Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:16:25 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/07/bible-of-badness-special-1-corinthians-1555/ Biblical scholars, have recently queried the standard translation of this particular part of the Bible. One of the more famous bits, this common exclamation was seen as a way of thundering against mortality, at challenging the heavens and claiming ones own manhood against the ages. All well and good during the period of the King James Bible, when mankind really was in a dark age and needed the succour of this kind of homily. In the King James Version it reads as follows:

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”


Said Biblical scholars have now noticed that the grammatical structure of the original is actually reversed, and was clearly misinterpreted by the King James scholars as it seemingly made no sense to them. However when considered that The Bible is supposedly the word of God, and God is omniscient, then it is clear that this was a prophetic cry out to any and all of us forced to witness the comeback tour of the Police*. Tired of being told that he would take Giant Steps on The Moon, and De-Do-Do-Do and De-Dah-Dah-Dah, God – seeing through time – felt fit to single out this most loathsome of singers and his four hour sexual practices. The correct translation, as I am sure even the least scholarly amongst you will have worked out is as follows:

“O Sting, where is thy death? Your grave, would be my victory?”

*Clearly a member of Tanya’s Army there.

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What Album Covers Are Really Trying To Tell Us: 4: Arcade Fire – Neon Bible https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/07/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-4-arcade-fire-neon-bible https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/07/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-4-arcade-fire-neon-bible#comments Wed, 04 Jul 2007 14:28:04 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/07/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-4-arcade-fire-neon-bible/ I set fire to an arcade once.

Well, who could resist burning the leaping loons playing Dance Dance Revolution. I heard the thumping base of “You Can’t Touch This”, two synchronised robo-teens and all I could think of, whilst lighting my Molotov Cocktail was Die Die Revolution. Anyway, this deceptive album cover in full:
arcadefirecovartlg.jpg

Remind you of anything?

Well yes, it does look a little like a tabletop video game from the early eighties, some sort of freeform Asteridis knock off, or a late level in Caterpillar. Perhaps one of the more trippy final levels of Missile Command might have been looke dlike that. The early ones were mere trackball minimalism.

Missile Command

But you are only thinking that because they are called Arcade Fire. Instead of “Sappy Anthemic Wettoes” as they should be monikered. Look closer. Squint a bit. Think monster…

cyberman800.jpg

That’s right. It is a neon artistic impression of an old school Cyberman from Doctor Who (here shown in somewhat less menacing cookie jar form). So what Arcade Fire are trying to tell us is that they are
a) Emotionless
b) Murderers
c) Have no heart
d) Are allergic to gold*
e) Are not as good as the Daleks.

Concentrate on b) and stay well away.

*Not, unfortunately to Gold Records.

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They Are Coming For Our Kids https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/06/they-are-coming-for-our-kids https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/06/they-are-coming-for-our-kids#respond Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:18:44 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/06/they-are-coming-for-our-kids/ Why is pornography on the top shelf of a newsagents? Why are skin flicks on late at night? Why has Bob Dylan got a face that would scare off any babe-in-arms?

SIMPLE: TO KEEP THIS SICK FILTH AWAY FROM OUR CHILDREN.

I also used to think this was why they kept ABBA records on the top shelf of a record store, until I realised that it was just a happy coincidence of alphabetisation. Nevertheless the western social contract appears to suggest that there are certain things that children should be protected from while they are at an impressionable age. So while I disagree that the legal drinking age should be eighteen (nothing binge like in my teenage gin experiments), it has had the happy upshot of saving our children from many live music venues. If you have to be eighteen to got to G-A-Y then maybe you will be spared the tawdry site of seeing Danii Minogue launch her thirteenth comeback.
underage.jpg

Which is why the horror that is THE UNDERAGE FESTIVAL must be banned. Subjecting the impressionable childlike minds to a music festival is the worst thing that could happen to them. Except perhaps a music festival featuring Mumm-ra and The Pigeon Detectives. Woudl you allow you 14-19 year olds to go to Scientology Camp? Well!

What kind of idiots call it the Underage Festival in the first place? Surely the only plus point of drawing attention to the jailbait on offer is that it would be a be a sure fire way to get Gary Glitter and Jonathan King, not to mention the Bill Wyman All-Stars on the bill. Now I am not saying that the Tiny Dancers, Vincent Vincent and the Villains or the Mystery Jets are kiddie fiddlers (well maybe one of the Villains), but its not going to look good when they try and get a CRB check for their next career as a primary school teacher. And lets be fair, the members of I Was A Cub Scout aren’t going to be in a band for long.

Anyway, its not as if there aren’t hundred of kids at proper festivals like Glastonbury. Which I approve of. First of all it takes little Indigo and Space Pod away from our playground where their parents alternative lifestyle harms our own kids robust development. And secondly the idea of mud, rain, their parents weeping on space-cakes and amoebic dysentery becomes associated with music: putting them off for life. Indeed just seeing a scary leatherfaced band like the Who should do the job. Come to think of it, why isn’t Pete Townshend playing the Underage Festival? For research purposes obviously.

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Tanya’s Army Of Awfulness: CAPTAIN BEEFHEART https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-captain-beefheart https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-captain-beefheart#comments Wed, 30 May 2007 10:55:43 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-captain-beefheart/ trout_mask_replica.jpgReally.

Do I have to write any words at all?

Surely John Peel’s love for Don Van Vliet says it all. Surely the sunken hearts of every teenager who bought Trout Mask Replica in the belief it was the best album ever, only to realise it was a collection of sixth form poetry and farm noises says it all. Surely the fact that John Harris recently decided it was alright said it was alright for the rest of the universe to pull back and reveal it was all just ONE BIG JOKE ON PUDDING BOWL HAIRCUTTED WORZEL GUMMIDGE.

There really isn’t anything I need to say to persuade anyone, surely, that Beefy is a pile of old toss. OK if you want to get a selection of poor third hand blues numbers mixed with sea shanties which would get your arsed kicked from here to Portsmouth Docks if you actually sung them to a sailor. Actually they would probably make Beefheart walk the plank too, the sound of which would probably be track thirteen off of one of his other interminable albums. It may not be his fault that he knew Zappa as a kid, but that is certainly no reason to let him produce your album. Did the Monkees let Charles Manson produce THEIR albums*? Did the Beatles let an absolutely loony and potential murderer produce one of their albums? Well, yes, but it was Let It Be, which stinks up their already stinky back catalogue. POINT IS, if you are shit to begin with, being produced by the Frank Zappa is certainly not going to help. Though in Beefheart’s case, only surgery and being locked in a padded, soundproof room would really help.

In a lot of ways I like Beefheart. Not the music. Heaven forfend. But there is a certainly glazed look you get from music fans, the morning after they have bought Trout Mask Replica. It is the glance of befuddlement, the disillusionment with this wondrous thing they thought the history of music was. They walked in to buy something that would give weight to their collection of Sum 41 albums, to suggest that they were now to be counted amongst the tasteful, respectful musicphiles. Instead they were left with a record they never wanted to play again. And the sense of being sold a pup. Or in this case a pup with diarrhea. Proof? Just look up the album on Ebay. See a copy ever go for more than a quid and you might also see Scooch have another hit single. Its that rare, because its that rubbish.

*Actually, perhaps they should have. Then their theme tune could have been

“Here they come, shambling down the street
There appear to be no legs attached to their feet”

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Tanya’s Army Of Awfulness: LIEUTENANT PIGEON https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-lieutenant-pigeon https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-lieutenant-pigeon#comments Tue, 15 May 2007 15:35:05 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-lieutenant-pigeon/ pigeon.jpgHa ha, finally I get the jump on my arch-nemesis Tom Ewing and his music loving ways. Over on his tedious attempt to commit suicide / listen to every UK number one ever he is stuck in the hinterland on 1972. Possibly with the odd sequin between his teeth and losing the ability to spell (due wholly to Noddy “short for Nodward” Holder). Well I am ahead of him now, as Lieutenant Pigeon’s biggest hit (and to be fair only hit of note, though the notes issue is one I shall shortly get to) was also from 1972, which he hasn’t reached yet. So let me put on my finest false beard and predict what Mr Ewing will fawn over this song.

“I have never been convinced by the excuse that a track is merely a novelty single. Mouldy Old Dough is a perfect example. It may well be a flashback of music hall styles, it may have an old lady bashing out ragtime jazz on a detuned piano. But what underpins the genius of Mouldy Old Dough is the glittering pop cynicism of the British music audience. They had taken Marc Bolan to their hearts, were in the process of assimilating David Bowie’s Antony Newley impression and therefore were ready and willing to grab anything that sounded a bit different. And some giffers shouting Mouldy Old Dough over sloppy ragtime was as different (and eventually less harmful) than The Glitter Band. Let it in your head, and it will never leave. And your life will be better for it.10

HA! Take that Ewing. I have seen your novelty sympathies and know where they lie. This is what I would say if let loose on the amusingly titles Popular.

“I have never been convinced by the excuse that a track is merely a novelty single. Mouldy Old Dough is a perfect example. It may well be a flashback of music hall styles, it may have an old lady bashing out ragtime jazz on a detuned piano. But it is still shit. Indeed it is shit because of this. What underpins the idiocy of Mouldy Old Dough is the glittering pop cynicism of the British music audience, who will buy any old tat if it makes them smile for a second. After all these fools had taken Marc Bolan to their hearts and were in the process of assimilating David Bowie’s piss-poor secondhand Antony Newley impression as the nest best thing. These micro-brained pop fans were ready and willing to grab anything that sounded a bit different. And some giffers shouting Mouldy Old Dough over sloppy ragtime was as different as The Glitter Band, and just as rubbish. IT IS PEOPLE SHOUTING MOULDY OLD DOUGH! Let it in your head, and it will never leave. And your life will be worse for it.”

On top of which how many bands can you think of which have the lead singers Mum as a full member? Especially a Mum who plays piano so badly. LOOK AT THEM! Mouldy Old Shite more like.

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Tanya’s Army Of Awfulness: WARRANT (OFFICER) – Cherry Pie https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-warrant-officer-cherry-pie https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-warrant-officer-cherry-pie#comments Fri, 11 May 2007 15:55:18 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-warrant-officer-cherry-pie/ warrant.jpg“Damn fine Cherry Pie”. Such was Agent Smith’s catch phrase in David Lynch whacked-out-a-thon Twin Peaks. (A TV show responsible for not only Julee Cruise’s aural mogadon “Falling” but THE ENTIRITY OF MOBY’S CAREER – so Lynch is not on my Christmas card list). Clearly Agent Smith was talking about an actually Cherry Pie, and not this archetypal slice of hair metal by Warrant. Because there are plenty of words that describe this record, but Damn Fine are not amongst them*.

Some days the articles write themselves. Look at these attractive young men. Imagine what the Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket would have to say to them. One imagines he would not have been overly pleased to see this five rock (literally) up in his platoon to be knocked into some sort of shape. One would assume the shape would no longer have such big hair after a bit – and looking at Warrant after the clippers have been at them would be quite entertaining. As longs as I had ear-plugs in.

cherry-pie.jpgCherry Pie is a song with clever double entendre lyrics which was a big hit in the US. In an uncharacteristic pique of good taste, the British public rejected this single. Perhaps because we found the casual sexism to be unpalatable, but more likely because it is absolute shite. Rocking out in a way which would only convince if you had only ever seen Bon Jovi in your life, Warrant used so much hairspray that they were a walking Hindenberg disaster waiting to happen. All it would take is a feminist – or indeed me – to attack them with a single match and they would go up in smoke, taking with them the brains which invented such lyrics as: She “She wanted me to feed her
So I mixed up the batter
And she licked the beater”

Before you give them the benefit of the doubt that this might be about making a pie, look at that single cover again. And then note that the Cherry Pie in question is not an actually pie, but the lady in question. A lady who, surprisingly, i have something in common with. One of the key things bout Ms Cherry Pie the boys from Warrant note is that “Taste so good she makes a grown man cry”. Now I cannot testify to how I taste, but I certainly know how to make a grown man cry. With a knuckle duster.

*If you want to you can perm between any of these words:
Rubbish, Terrible, Stinky, Embarrassing, Misogynistic, Sexist, Shocking-like-a-4V-battery, hairy, greasy, pompous, over-inflated.

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Tanya’s Army Of Awfulness: XTC – SERGEANT ROCK https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-xtc-sergeant-rock https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-xtc-sergeant-rock#comments Tue, 01 May 2007 12:09:25 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/05/tanya%e2%80%99s-army-of-awfulness-xtc-sergeant-rock/ sgtrock.jpgActually the XTC single is called Sgt.Rock, where Sgt is the abbreviation for Sergeant. Which is not surprising for XTC, a band so poor at spelling that they could not spell their own name. Even the home counties numb-nutts that were EMF knew that Ecstacy starts with an E. Unless they were taking advice from the E-Zee Possee (more poor spellers) who foolishly believed that Everything Starts With An E. Actually what Mr E.Z.Possee actually should have noticed was the following things started with an e:
1) The Word Everything
2) Everything that begins with an E
3) All his GCSE results.

But I digress.

Sgt.Rock is a song about the wussy boys from XTC being a bit rubbish with girls. But rather than get a haircut, stop playing parochial post punk limerick pop and hang out in trendy bars, XTC decide to enlist. Believing that a buzz cut and access to automatic weaponry would be the secret to their problem with girls was foolish in itself, but not as foolish as enlisting to work with a completely fictional comic-book army instead of the real one. Sgt. Frank Rock, of Easy Company, was never shown to be a dab hand with the ladies in his US comics G.I.Combat or Our Army At War, and the very existence fo girls was pretty much shunned by adolescent boy comics. Unless they were Baronesses work for the RATZI’s.

Andy Partridge’s problem with women is very clear from the lyrics where he calls them anything but. Sgt Rock is apparently going to help him “make the girl mine”, “help with a maid“, is an “expert on mademoiselles“, can diffuse “any bombshell“. Yeah, but what is he like with women? Frankly calling in Sergeant Rock for relationship advice is like phoning Spider-Man to get your plumbing done.

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Tanya’s Army Of Awfulness: Carcass – CORPORAL JIGSORE QUANDARY https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/tanyas-army-of-awfulness-carcass-corporal-jigsore-quandary https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/tanyas-army-of-awfulness-carcass-corporal-jigsore-quandary#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:58:40 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/tanyas-army-of-awfulness-carcass-corporal-jigsore-quandary/ There are only two songs I could find that mentioned Corporals, and since my views on Pink Floyd seem adequately covered*, I would rather look at Carcass. Initially though I thought there would be little to say about the Napalm Death spin-off band which hasn’t been said here, or indeed is not said by the bands logo.
carcass-logo.gif
One wonders how someone gets into a band whose very logo is unintelligible. But then sense of lyrics comes low down in the priorities of a grindcore band: and way after “hair length”, “sounding like pigs dying in an abatoir” and of course “lifetime membership to the Tufty Club”. Lyrics to grindcore and death metal bands are always hilarious because they are never actually intelligible to the listener. Instead one has to fold out the environmentally friendly booklet in the recycled (from ethically forested wood, not the souls of the hellbound) digipak to read them. But it is always worthwhile, as grindcores gain is clearly the loss of poetry. Corporal Jigsore Quandary is not just a misspelling from comments thread about emo, it is so much more.

Excised and anatomised, deviscerated disarray
The torso diverged with pride
Deftly amputated, evulsed limbs now defunct
The trunk imbrued, tatty stumps used as lugs
For a chondrin puzzle so quaint
Head and body decollate

Its as if HP Lovecraft has been reborn, grew his hair and went hunt sabbing. Clearly the members of Carcass have a favourite section of Readers Digest: Increase Your (Cthonic) Wordpower. I have no idea what they are on about, except the vague idea that someone, somewhere is being chopped into bits. But I for one recommend the reading of these lyrics before you listen to the squealing piglike grunts these “unusual” words are fitted into. They should be enough to warn you of how bad the music would have to be to be worse than the words. Here are some more:

Battered and diffused, with placating blows
– A human jigsaw to make whole
A sequacious pattern which once fitted so snug
– Joining together each dubious lump
Ravaged disassembly, neatly cubed and diced
– A cold mannequin reassembled
Astute brain teaser, incorporate flesh and bone
So mortifying…
An incessant game – methodically made
With each cumulative piecing – of commensated meat…

Want more? Well scurry off and buy yourself Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious, making sure you buy a bolt gun to put yourself out of your clear misery on the way back. Who wouldn’t want to die with this as the last image in their eyeballs.
carcass-necroticism.jpg

*Covered here, here and here.
But OK. Because you demanded it. Six shit things about Corporal Clegg by Pink Floyd off of a Saucerful Of Secrets.

a) A saucerful is not many secrets. Enough room for one big secret: like Pink Floyd being crap.
b) Corporal Clegg got a medal in a zoo – BECAUSE IT RHMYES WITH BLUE
c) Dave Gilmour plays a kazoo on it. Which is like blowing a raspberry all the way through the song.
d) Nick Mason sings on it. Singing drummers: guaranteed crap.
e) It is the first Pink Floyd song about war. SADLY NOT THE LAST.
f) “Corporal Clegg umbrella in the rain”: WHAT A TRENDSETTER!

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Tanya’s Army Of Awfulness: PRIVATE DANCER https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/tanyas-army-of-awfulness-private-dancer https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/tanyas-army-of-awfulness-private-dancer#respond Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:43:43 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/tanyas-army-of-awfulness-private-dancer/ private-dancer.jpg“God help us if there is a war”, my father used to say looking at Top Of The Pops on television. I could no hear him of course, as I had my fingers in my ears to protect them from the Saville peddled filth, but I could lip read and did not understand. God would indeed be helping us if there was a war, as these terrible young pop musicians might get drafted, and then killed as they would be rubbish soldiers. OK, we might lose the war, but as I have mentioned previously the single redeeming factor of the Taliban was their hatred of music*.

No many a quiet hour has been whittled away thinking of the Kaiser Chiefs as a group in World War I, stuck in a trench facing impending doom (from the English of course, the Kaiser Chief’s clearly being on Bismarck’s side). But I don’t have to imagine much, as many a pop star has had pretensions of life in the services. Take Tina Turner’s brief spell in khaki after all: Private Dancer.

When I first heard about Private Dancer I thought it would be an amusing fish out of water comedy like Goldie Hawn’s Private Benjamin. Instead it was an unamusing comeback album about as welcome as an appearance by Nine Inch Nails at a Royal Variety Performance. Just when the world was full of raspy voiced big haired rock stars, the (acid) queen on BIG HAIR and RASPY VOICE came back on the scene. Trialing a post-apocalyptic look years before Mad Max 3, she also trialed a post-apocalyptic dystopian sound. Well what else would you call working with Mark Knopfler.

Private Dancer is not about a soldier who likes to don a tutu and do a bit of Swan Lake. It is about a lady who dances for money in a men’s strip joint. Which conjured up the horrific thought of Tina naked. Long before the Tina Turner movie, What’s Love Got To Do With It we were well aware of Ike Turner’s abusive contribution to their relationship. Well he wasn’t in it just to have a looker on his arm. Imagine you had gone to a Spearmint Rhino**, and banged down your fifty dollars only to get a geriatric foghorn with a polyester wig out writhing around a pole. There’s a reason she was a Private Dancer. Nobody else would want to be in the room with her.

*Of course their hatred of GIN would be a mitigating factor, so much so that after The Cooper Temple Cause were mown down in a hail of automatic fire, I would happily join up. And anyone who has ever met me would agree that you don’t want to be on the wrong end of my ire. Look what happened to James Brown.

**A name which can only ever conjure the idea of a a particularly unambitious British indie band being speared by said creature. Which is a lovely image.

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VIEW-WATCH URGENT APPEAL https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/view-watch-urgent-appeal https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/view-watch-urgent-appeal#respond Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:20:09 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/view-watch-urgent-appeal/ Friends of the busker men The View are in a spot of pickly bother, readers! They’ve lost their support band, The Horrors. I expect that the so-called Horrors realised what TRUE HORROR was after listening to the View soundcheck. Anyway, they’ve run away as fast as their skinny goth pins will carry them and the View are now asking for a new support band for tonight.

Of course I’d ordinarily hope that nobody applies, but anyone paying to see The View deserves the double dose of pain this scheme will no doubt deliver.

The View state that they are not looking for any particular type of band – just one who is “good”. Which of course begs the question: how the fuck would The View know?. This, as I may have commented before, are the band who have an inferiority complex when it comes to buskers, so it’s no surprise that, after receiving 3 demo tapes within 5 minutes of starting their appeal, they have found themselves with a difficult choice. “The standard so far is really high!” says a gobsmacked Viewite, “We had no idea there were so many good bands around.” Yes, this is because the View are the worst band in the universe and a group of four gibbons with coconut shells would surprise and stun them with their musical quality. It’s like asking a blade of grass to judge a tallest tree content.

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The Theme Tune To Dad’s Army https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/the-theme-tune-to-dads-army https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/the-theme-tune-to-dads-army#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:44:48 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/the-theme-tune-to-dads-army/ dadsarmy_main.gif“Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler” sings Bud Flanagan at the start of Dad’s Army. I think you’ll find that Herr Hitler was not “kidding” anyone, and was deadly serious about his attempted conquest of Europe. Indeed as statements in song about World War II this is almost as crass as “How could you lose, six million Jews?”, by Emerson Lake and Palmer. But then what would you expect from a TV show whose express purpose seemed to be to demonstrate how Britain won the war by being old, incontinent and deliberately unfunny. A bit like that Genesis comeback tour then.

Indeed Dad’s Army could have only been worse if it had been called Dadrock Army, about the battle being waged by aging rockstars in today’s youth oriented market. Indeed there is a direct crossover, what with Arthur Lowe being Nick Lowe’s dad: he would be a shoo-in for the role of Cpt Mainwaring. I could certainly see Paul Weller as a Sergeant Wilson type, sneering at Lowe whilst being even more pompously mod. Add Alex Harvey as Frazer and Bill Wyman as Private Godfrey to fill out the ranks. Private Pike would be Dadrock wannabe Noel Gallagher whilst Corporal Jones would be the hoariest of the old Dadrockers himself: Paul “Thumbs Up” McCartney. The show wouldn’t be any good, though there could be a laugh in seeing Nick Lowe call Noel Gallagher a stupid boy. But if it were made I could tinker with the pyrotechnics on set and before your could say “Travelling Wilbury’s Disaster of 1997” we’d be seeing some nice rock funerals.

In the opening animation, the British Arrow is seen to be chomping at the bit to escape the UK. Not surprising, considering that all it would be able to listen to would be Vera Lynn (forces sweetheart) or Flanagan and Allen (forces punishment). One cannot under-estimate the power of piss-poor wartime songs in repelling the Nazi’s: they may have had no great music of their own, but knew when they were opening an even shittier bag. WDYTYAKMH was not from the war, but rather a pastiche written by show writers Croft and Perry. The quality of their comedy writing was crassness of the song, leaving Dad’s Army to be visual equivalent of listening to Cranberries album “To The Faithful Departed” (you know, the one with the Bosnia song on it). Dad’s Army was certainly the dullest half hour of the week on TV after Top Of The Pops (and even that I used to be able to get nicely wound up about). Old people, playing at soldiers: isn’t that just Status Quo singing In The Army Now on a bad day? Dadrock’s Army indeed. Indeed I fear that this has opened a terrible can of worms. There are a lot of bands and songs about the armed forces : so its time for the Tanya’s Army Of Awfulness.

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Not With The Beatles https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/not-with-the-beatles https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/not-with-the-beatles#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:04:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/not-with-the-beatles/ Fifth Beatle Quits says BBC.

It won’t surprise you to know that I think most musicians are a bit dim. But even I have to admit that they’re usually cleverer than the people working for them.

“The man responsible for the Beatles’ business affairs has quit after more than 40 years with the band. Neil Aspinall, 64, started out as the group’s road manager and used to drive them to gigs in his van.”

I think it would take most people less than 27 years to notice that the band they roadie for has split up.

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People Are Strange, Doors Fans Are Stranger aka What’s Up, Cock? https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/people-are-strange-doors-fans-are-stranger-aka-whats-up-cock https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/people-are-strange-doors-fans-are-stranger-aka-whats-up-cock#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:40:32 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/people-are-strange-doors-fans-are-stranger-aka-whats-up-cock/ Want proof? Here are a bunch of Doors fans seeking a pardon for Jim Morrison. Now if you ask me, there is absolutely no forgiveness availible for the heinous crimes committed by the so called Lizard King. Not only was their stoner rock lazy, lacksidasical and unintelligable, they spawned two generations of even lazier, lacksadaisic mumble bonces since. But apparently, these low IQ-ed Doors fans don’t want a pardon for his crimes against humanity. Instead they want a pardon for a very specific crime. One of exposing himself in-front of an audience in Florida.

Now I don’t think it is in the remit of the Florida courts to go back on their sensible decision to have a crime of “Being The Doors in a live venue” on their statute books, though I am surprised that Ray Manzarek wasn’t arrested too. But apparently the crime was indecent exposure. Again, Jim Morrison in public strikes me as about as indecent as you can get. Instead the crime appears to be specifically that a cock was shown on stage.

Well, that would be Jim Morrison.

The fans seem under the misapprehension that the crime was that he got his penis out. Well anything to distract the audience from the awful drone Riders On The Storm. They are falling back on the old chestnut that he only “simulated” getting his cock out. Probably he did this by the time honoured method of sticking his hand down his pants and poking his pinkie out of his flies. It says something for the assumed prowess of Fat Jim that when the flies of perception were opened, the audience believed a teeny tiny finger to be the Morrison Manhood. Lizard King? We’re not talking a Komodo Dragon here, more a small and shy Gecko.

Anyway, simulation is nine tenths of the law. The Doors may have simulated making great records, but what they actually put out was sub-hippy pap suitable only for the ears after five special cigarettes. Jim Morrison may have simulated sexual allure and talent, but actually he was a slightly sweaty fat bloke with a voice suitable only for reading out the train arrivals at Wigan station.

The allusion in the story was to a NY governor pardoning Lenny Bruce for an obscenity charge. Well that’s cos Lenny wasn’t obscene. Jim Morrison was a dick.

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IHM LYRIC WATCH: Elvis Costello April Fools Special https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/03/ihm-lyric-watch-elvis-costello-april-fools-special https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/03/ihm-lyric-watch-elvis-costello-april-fools-special#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:57:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/03/ihm-lyric-watch-elvis-costello-april-fools-special/ Elvis Costello – clever name, clever guy, right? Or wrong? Let’s look at his 1992 track, aptly named “How To Be Dumb”:

Don’t you know how to be dumb?
Are you ready to take your place
In the modern museum of mistakes?

OK, not a great lyric, but a little work and application and Elvis might have a future as a comments box troll. But what happens next?

Don’t you know how to be dumb?
Like a building thrown up overnight
In one of those reverse earthquakes?

Yeah, those are really dumb! When I hear about one of those reverse earthquakes, I always think the buildings they throw up overnight are STOOPID.

Which reverse earthquakes? Oh, you know, those ones.

The use of “those” suggests that Elvis feels reverse earthquakes are something we all know about, rather than something which, well, only Elvis Costello knows about, in his deranged foaming vengeful Costellobrain. What possessed him to write such a line? A bit of research reveals that Mr Costello actually wrote the song on April 1st, after reading about “reverse earthquakes” in a newspaper of record. “That’s amazing!” he thought, “I can put that in my song!”

A quick glance at his lyric book suggests several other versions were under consideration:

Don’t you know how to please?
Like a delicious plate of spaghetti
From one of those spaghetti trees

Don’t you know how to show grief
Like a family on holiday
In war-torn San Serriffe?

Don’t you know you have bad habits
Like that disturbing 18th Century woman
Who gave birth to sixteen rabbits?

Who’s dumb NOW, eh Elv?

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IHM Obvious Joke Watch: The Klaxons https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/03/ihm-obvious-joke-watch-the-klaxons https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/03/ihm-obvious-joke-watch-the-klaxons#respond Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:17:38 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/03/ihm-obvious-joke-watch-the-klaxons/ Klaxons n. 1. a device that makes an unpleasant repetitve noise, with the effect of clearing an area as quickly as possible.

2. that gadget the police use.

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IHM Lyrics Watch – The Klaxons https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2007/02/ihm-lyrics-watch-the-klaxons https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2007/02/ihm-lyrics-watch-the-klaxons#comments Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:09:34 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2007/02/ihm-lyrics-watch-%e2%80%93-the-klaxons/ Klaxon is a trademark for an electromechanical horn or alerting device… they alert listeners of the vehicle’s arrival and possible danger… derives from the Greek verb klazo, meaning “to shriek” – Wikipedia

I have discovered a way to improve the image of sixth form poetry. It has cost me dear, so I would like to share it with you. It is to expose the lyrics perpetrated by “nu rave” (“no hope”, more like) band Klaxons. Their migraine and nausea inducing sounds are backed up with the most ill-thought-out pseudo-intellectual lyrics you are ever likely to witness. Unless you are a particular fan of Jimmy Page (more fool you).

Now much as I HATE MUSIC (in capitals for the commenters who seem to still miss this basic point), I have a fondness for the written word (like most ‘web-loggers’) and a disposition for what is grandly termed literary fiction. As these Klaxon boys pretend to. However with all of literature to choose from they seem, predictably, hung up on male ‘cult’ authors (I said ‘cult’) beloved of adolescents. Books such as these are like drugs: fun to experience but tedious to hear being talked about, let alone sung about. Just as each generation fondly imagines they are the first to discover marijuana, every moping goth thinks they are the only person to have read Herman Hesse’s “The Glass Bead Game” under the covers with a torch. The Klaxons might actually be the first to have read it under the covers with a glowstick, alternatively they might have been doing something else with their “glowstick”. In any case it is we, the innocent public, who deal with the horrendous aftermath: the resulting regurgitated purple prose. Usually this is locked away in the sixth form common room along with posters of Che Guevara and Roger Dean album covers. But when this prose starts to gain a wider public profile, swift action must be taken.

But why take inspiration from literature when you can merely replicate the titles of books! That’s right, just name your album and a couple of tracks after JG Ballard and Thomas Pynchon novels. That’s the hard work of making you look literate done. Then you can get away with pasting lyrics together from the mystical guff copied off the back of books about Aleister Crowley and HP Lovecraft. Here’s a particularly bland example:

“A whipporwhill in flight, turns east towards Westphalia, In search of lost time, with the magic of true light”

To give them a smidgeon of credit, a North American bird would indeed turn east if it was to head towards a region of Germany, though why that would be a destination or even directional guide across such a distance I don’t think anyone cares to know. Perhaps the word was carefully chosen after it was once highlighted, in orange, in a copy of The Atrocity Exhibition with the words ‘oo, nice sounding word’ in the margin. And an empty allusion to Proust as well: bonus points on the “not actually read or understood a word of it”-o-meter.

That modern music has resorted to the lyrically moribund tactics of 70s prog bands is no surprise, but their abuse of language to publicise this as a “new” form of anything, leave alone “rave” (the very mindless music I asked the government to outlaw in 1994*), leaves me breathless.

Nu-rave: I dig thee a NEW GRAVE.

*Have you seen the Utah Saints recently? EXACTLY.

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IHM Lyrics Watch: The View – “Same Jeans” https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/02/ihm-lyrics-watch-the-view-same-jeans https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/02/ihm-lyrics-watch-the-view-same-jeans#comments Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:15:40 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/02/ihm-lyrics-watch-the-view-same-jeans/ “I take my hat right off to the busker man”

There are two ways of viewing this lyric by unambitious bottom-feeders The View.

One is metaphorical. The band are taking their hats off to the busker man out of respect. Which is understandable in a way. Not only do the View sound horribly like a busker who has taught himself to play using only an old Cornershop single and a copy of C86, but all buskers are cunts, and so too are the View. So this might be a warm fraternal greeting from cunt to cunt.

You, dear reader, might worry at the thought of the British Public putting a band in the Top 5 who think of themselves on the same level as – or perhaps a respectful rung or two below – the busking profession. You might even consider it a dreadful nightmare from which you thrash and sweat to awake. But nothing shocks me any more.

Besides, I take comfort in the second reading of the lyric. Which is of the View taking their hat off to the busker man literally, and the busker interpreting it as an attempt to muscle in on his pitch, and beating the View mercilessly about the head and arms with his guitar. Until it breaks. Or they do.

(Oh, and if they think its impressive to wear the same jeans for four days, may I invite them to my special shoe shop? I will fit them with some shoes which they will be able to wear for eternity. Or at least until someone drains the Thames and removes their concrete boots.)

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Better Than Ezra https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/02/better-than-ezra https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/02/better-than-ezra#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:06:38 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/02/better-than-ezra/ Poking my head up from my current secret hideaway from those menko Pink Floyd fans, to test the water. And who better to test this water on than Better Than Ezra fans. Let’s be fair, a pretty small subsection. And group to whom I only have one thing to say.

HOW FUCKING BAD COULD EZRA HAVE BEEN?

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Science vs Tanya Round 74 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/science-vs-tanya-round-74 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/science-vs-tanya-round-74#comments Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:09:47 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/science-vs-tanya-round-74/ Regular readers of I Hate Music will know that I have little truck with science, unless I’m using it to blind Thomas Dolby. Science has consistently let me down: I have lobbied long and hard to prove the harmful effects of listening to music but the so-called ‘scientific establishment’ continue to ignore my pioneering work, claiming that my proposals are somehow “unworkable”. This is nonsense: the experiment which would have proved that beheading Lemar is more enjoyable than listening to him, for instance, is absolutely watertight.

Anyway my disillusionment has reached a new peak today, with the publication of an ‘online survey’ in which scientists purport to announce the “worst sound ever”. Their top three are: 1) Vomiting. 2) Microphone feedback. 3) Crying babies. What they DON’T tell you is that this survey was conducted online BY ME and their so-called results are a blatant falsification of the data I presented them with. “Microphone feedback” is a PLEASANT sound as it means that the microphone isn’t working. Crying babies are fine – it’s the lullabies that are the problem.

Under cover of some cock-and-bull story about forged ballots they have quietly edited the REAL top 5 worst sounds, which I exclusively present to you now.

5. Vomiting
4. The pitiful last bleatings of a dying lamb.
3. A busload of disabled children howling as they plunge over a cliff on a treacherous hairpin bend.
2. The sound of rats scratching at the sides of a coffin you have been sealed into by an arch-enemy.
1. Mika

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What Album Covers Are Really Trying To Tell Us: 3: Jamie T – Panic Prevention https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-3-jamie-t-panic-prevention https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-3-jamie-t-panic-prevention#comments Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:53:43 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-3-jamie-t-panic-prevention/ After this stinging criticism regarding the secret message on Bad from Steve Mannion, I have decided to look closer at an album that is not even out yet. This way I can discover the secret message, and spread it to you BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY BUY IT. And so Jamie T, all new darling of the London music scene J’Accuse…
jamie-tee.jpg

What does Jack Accuse though. Well clearly this room on the cover is straight out of the hit BBC TV show A Life Of Grime. Jamie T perhaps is trying to tell us that he is not actually a voice of urban youth after all. Instead he is secretly some gumming OAP who wets himself, smokes eighty Woodbines a day and does that licky kissing thing with his dog (a three legged mongrel). And throwing things away is anathema to him. Which would go a long way to explaining some of his lyrics. No there is only one album cover in history more messy, disorganised and badly designed than this: and that’s the Popjustice album cover (cheers Mannion!)

However it is not as simple as him being some missing OAP. No, the truth is even more sinister. Lets higlight the album cover further for four clues to the horrible truth.
jamie-tee-42.jpg

1: Look at this font. What does it remind you of? How about this?
manics.jpg

2: This photo. A picture of who? Perhaps the headline GENERATION gives you a hint if you don’t have 24 style scanning software. Yes, the first Manic Street Preachers album was called Generation Terrorists and this is a picture of their early line-up.

3: You can’t see Jamie T’s forearm here. You would think that being called Jamie T, he might wear T-Shirts. Clearly he has something to hide. Here is an artist impression of what his forearm actually looks like.
jamie-arm.jpg

4: Again using my CTU like image enhancing software, I was able to identify this vinyl album as The Holy Bible.

CONCLUSION: Jamie T is the biggest Manic Street Preachers fan around, and his album is going to either sound like a) off cuts from Gold Against The Soul or b) Shampoo. SO BE WARNED, Jamie T’s album is not so much Panic Prevention, as MANICS PRESERVATION.

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The Bible Of Badness: Dolly Parton – JOSHUA https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/the-bible-of-badness-dolly-parton-joshua https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/the-bible-of-badness-dolly-parton-joshua#comments Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:33:21 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/01/the-bible-of-badness-dolly-parton-joshua/ Bible Of BadnessMany people find it hard to take Dolly Parton seriously as a musician, despite a long and distinguished songwriting career full of hits and songs which are now seen as country standards. I find it hard to take Dolly Parton seriously as a musician because of her long and distinguished songwriting career full of hits and songs which are now seen as country standards. But then whenever I see more than one musician in a room together I am braced for seeing a couple of huge tits. The only difference with Dolly it all-comes in one Tennessee Smokey Mountain bluegrass plasticked up package. If only someone had taken the advice of the bloke of Junior Antiques Roadshow who told us not to take our Dolly’s out of the packaging we may never have been troubled by 9 To 5 or I Will Always Love You*.

Joshua itself is one of her many songs about her Tennessee Mountain Home-life, though one which somewhat contradicts a lot of her other songs about her Tennessee Mountain Home, such as In My Tennessee Mountain Home. Dolly was one of twelve children (unfortunately the wrong ones died in childbirth), and in a lot of her more bluegrass numbers she discusses having many siblings. Such as Coat Of Many Colours where her mother makes her a coat of rags in the hope that her other siblings will sell her to the Pharaoh in Egypt and finally stop her big breasted singing around the house. Perhaps this is why she imagines herself to be an orphan in Joshua.

Joshua himself, star of the song, is described as follows:
His beard and his hair was long and black
And he was the biggest man I’d ever seen
When he spoke his voice was low and deep

220px-dolly_parton_in_nashville_april_2005.jpgHe is also described as being quite fearsome: though from this description he sounds a lot more like Tom Ewing to me, who couldn’t scare a fly. Anyway, Dolly wanders around the ramshackle gaff of this Appalachian Tom Ewing-a-like and without a by-your-leave, and despite this frightening reputation, moves in. The song is pitched as a meeting of two unlikely soulmates, but when you think about it, this freakishly large mountain man, and this freakishly breasted mountain woman fit together perfectly. Let’s be fair, this photo of Dolly from 2005 makes her look not so much like a Mountain mama as Pete Burns. Ans as Pete will tell you, you can’t get plastic surgery when you are dirt poor and living in a shack. So clearly somewhere along the line Dolly left Joshua and ditched it all for the bright lights. Indeed one imagines the entire song is actually a lie, as she is not an orphan, and you’d think Joshua would be suing for some sort of alimony. If he wasn’t he would feel a bit of a tit. As opposed to the two massive ones he used to feel.

*Which is more than ample reason to always hate her.

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What Album Covers Are Really Trying To Tell Us: 2: Michael Jackson – Bad https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-2-michael-jackson-bad https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-2-michael-jackson-bad#comments Thu, 28 Dec 2006 23:35:31 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-2-michael-jackson-bad/ Hmm, not really a secret message this one. But sometimes evil hides in plain sight. Look at Rolling Stones gigs.

200px-michael_jackson_bad_cd_cover_1987_cdda.jpg

Okay, have you noticed it yet? Do you think it is the excessive use of buckles in Michael Jackson black suit. When you think about it, only one form of clothing actually uses buckles like this. A strait jacket. That this album cover is hinting to us is that Jacko is actually mad. Well who’d have thought? But not, that’s not it. Look again…

200px-michael_jackson_bad_cd_cover_1987_cdda.jpg

White, black and red are the predominant colours. JUST LIKE A TABLOID NEWSPAPER. Michael is trying to tell us that from this moment on his life will be lived as some sort of ghastly soap opera in the British tabloid press, and thus is pleading with us to not be complicit in this cruelty. Again a fine theory, but one which credits the so called King Of Pop with too much intelligence. Would that there was a Bastille Day of Pop and I could decapitate him.

Maybe a little bit of work on the album cover will stress what this secret hidden meaning is. Lets fade out Michael a touch:

bad2.jpg

There, see the secret meaning now?

THIS ALBUM IS BAD. DO NOT BUY IT.
This time you can’t say you weren’t warned.

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The Bible Of Badness: Old DEUTERONOMY https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/the-bible-of-badness-old-deuteronomy https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/the-bible-of-badness-old-deuteronomy#comments Thu, 07 Dec 2006 15:15:24 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/the-bible-of-badness-old-deuteronomy/ Bible Of BadnessCats.

I hate Cats. I hate the Stray Cats, I hate the Pussycat Dolls, I hate the Love Cats by the Cure. But most of all I hate Cats the Musical. I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber, that is a given, but previously I cannot say I had been troubled by T.S.Eliot. But once his not very good poems were turned into lyrics, well suddenly the mans anagram made sense. This was toilets. Ironically the French word for Cat is Chat, pronounced Shat, which is exactly the process I imagine Richard Stilgoe and Lloyd-Webber’s music did to Eliot’s poetry. All over it.

One wonders why Cats was so popular. Was it the whimsical treatment of highbrow art. Was it a sentimental animal loving British public, soft in the head for cheapo spandex anthropomorphism? Could it be the heart rending (which one would imagine would be painful) rendition of Memories by Elaine Page? No it was none of these. Men took their wives to Cats so they could look at the nubile young dancers dressed up as Cats with barely anything on. In the dark days of the Eighties it was cheaper than going to a strip show, albeit more furry friendly. Of course they were often let down when they truned out and realised that the entire cast were actually dressed like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard Of Oz.

Which brings us to Old Deutoronomy. The song suggests that he is an Old Cat. Taking the nine lives thing more than literally the track insipidly fits half arsed rhymes together whilst another dancer booted out of the RAD dons an extra pair of whiskers and gets to dance slowly for a bit. But looking closer at the lyrics you’d think it would be possible to note where Eliot leaves, and Stilgoe takes over:

Well of all things can it be really
No, yes, ho, hi, oh my eye!
My mind may be wandering but I confess
I believe it is Old Deuteronomy

But no. That ho-hi sub-Tolkein Tom Bombadil nonsense is in the original! Stilgoe is not responsible*. So not only do I hate music, I think I Hate Poetry now too. And ballet school dropouts with stick on tails. Cos I hate cats.

craps.jpg

*For the theme tune to Finders Keepers and the lyrics to Starlight Express he still deserves a slow roasting in hell.

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The Bible Of Badness: The Magic NUMBERS https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/the-bible-of-badness-the-magic-numbers https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/the-bible-of-badness-the-magic-numbers#comments Fri, 01 Dec 2006 17:15:29 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/12/the-bible-of-badness-the-magic-numbers/ Bible Of BadnessNumbers is the fourth book of the Bible, one where the Israelites are wandering around, fatalistically looking for a home. Had their Father forsaken them, had they plumped for the wrong religion after all? Its alright being the chosen ones, but when the requirements of your God get more twisty than Chubby Checker in a twisting competition then you might be justified in thinking that fate had dealt you a big hand of nothing. But who would have the guts to say that out loud, who knows what kind of fatwa could be called down on their heads.

The Magic Numbers on the other hand are a band whose nepotismic line up cannot be too far from the marriage situation with Adam and Eve’s kids. Its a bit of a Cain and Abel situation: though I am not suggesting anything as fatal as incest here, there are plenty of partners for the Gannon and Stoddart kids to plump for. But from the rotunda of life choices, being in a band with your sibling leads you to directly to living the plot of Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat. Clearly there were lots of families going round in the band of Israelites, so this would be a direct parallel, with the Stoddart family who were hounded out of Trinidad, Venezuala and the US: one assumes for playing lousy blues rock.

I for one cannot fathom how this band of no-hopers ever got popular. Of course I hate all music but I can imagine even a so-called music fan being in the audience for a Magic Numbers gig and being well-fed up with the performance. They don’t even have larger than life personas. Its just lanky hair (washed in lard one supposes), weak guitars and fatuous harmonies. It would not exactly feed the a public greedy for innovation of novelty. But then the British audience have never been one to embrace chance, its not exactly fatalistic of me to see the public going pie-eyed over yet another band of guitar toting fools. One might think that a woman in my position might get fatigue, watching yet another band of no-hopers becoming the next big thing. What is worse I can’t even work out whether its the blokes or the birds in the Magic Numbers who have the beards.

I wish they would get forever lost.

(There. I managed to do it without stooping to the level of Richard Bacon!)

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Tanya’s Teaser: What’s That Coming Over The Hill? https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/tanyas-teaser-whats-that-coming-over-the-hill https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/tanyas-teaser-whats-that-coming-over-the-hill#comments Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:18:12 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/tanyas-teaser-whats-that-coming-over-the-hill/ Welcome to my new quiz for music fans, where if you win I will send you all the hated music I have “liberated” from the Virgin Megastore but would not fit in the dustcart when it came on Friday. Clearly I cannot have the music lying around in my house, it would mark me out as the worst kind of hypocrite. Equally I cannot just leave it in the street where some innocent young whippersnapper may pick it up and suddenly start liking Akon. So instead here is a picture poser for the music fan. Send your name, address and when you are likely to be in so I can kill yet another another accursed music fan deliver your prize.

So this weeks question is simple: What’s That Coming Over The Hill?

whats-that-coming-over-the-hill.jpg

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The Bible Of Badness: LEVI(Ticus) Stubbs’ Tears – Billy Bragg https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-leviticus-stubbs-tears-billy-bragg https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-leviticus-stubbs-tears-billy-bragg#comments Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:58:24 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-leviticus-stubbs-tears-billy-bragg/ Bible Of BadnessI have dealt with Levi Stubbs before and was contemplating skipping this particular book of the Bible. There was also the possibility of exploring the link between jeans and popular music in the 1980’s, a point where Music clearly was Pants. From Nick Kamen through Reet Petite it was clear that the only reason people were buying these records was because they quite liked the eye candy in the ads. SO DON’T BUY THE RECORDS THEN. BUY A VIDEO OF THE ADVERT. But in the end I realised as the third book of the Pentateuch it really is quite an important book (and full of the nuttiest bits of the Bible such as Israel should be in the Eurovision Song Contest). And I also realised that I had never quite finished a previous ongoing series of mine: WEEDY EIGHTIES WHITE PEOPLE SINGING ABOUT SOUL STARS.

Previously in Weedy White People Singing About Soul Stars we had:

1: ABC – When Smokie Sings

2: Spandau Ballet – True

3: China Crisis – Black Man Ray

WEEDY WHITE PEOPLE SINGING ABOUT SOUL STARS
4: Billy Bragg – Levi Stubbs’ Tears

Rivalled only by The Tindersticks “My Sister” as the most depressing lyrics ever, it is clear that the tears being shed by Levi Stubbs is not for the poor heroine of this dismal song. How can it be, she listens to the Four Tops to cheer herself up (in itself a marker for how depressing her life is). Equally though it is not the tears of emotion that Levi Stubbs notoriously shed during performance because he could actually emote whilst singing. A couple of drops of onion juice will set anyone bawling, so its barely a trick worth noting. No, the tears are simple.

He had been name checked in a Billy Bragg song.

If there was ever an opposite to a Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame entry, it would be to be name-checked by the so called Basildon Bard (so called in some idea that you could put him in a Basildon Bond envelope and post him to a different country where his glottal stops would earn him the death sentence). Consider the company in which Levi Stubbs found himself. Not just his hateful song writers Whitfield and Strong, not just Holland Dozy and Holland but more correctly with Maggie Thatcher who rocked up in Bragg songs with alarming regularity. No Levi was crying because every time Bragg said his name it sounded like he was trying to warn ships away from the rocks in the Thames Estuary. And just by invoking the Four Tops does not mean that you have any inch of soul in your tune, lyrics or delivery.

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The Bible Of Badness: EXODUS – Bob Marley https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-exodus-bob-marley https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-exodus-bob-marley#comments Fri, 24 Nov 2006 16:18:39 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-exodus-bob-marley/ Bible Of BadnessIn many ways I should be grateful for the existence of Bob Marley. If it were not for his greatest hits album, Legend, most people would probably own more than one Reggae record. In acting as a one man summary for this particularly dismal form of music therefore (and then by dying too!) he has done me a favour in the world of music hating. But it just is not that simple. You see not only did Bob Marley also unfortunately make music, but he also gave birth to about four hundred children all of whom seem to be continuing this somewhat ropey legacy.

Marley was backed by the Wailers, a more apposite name for a band I have never heard. Not that they wailed in the standard wailing and gnashing sense. Rather they probably wailed internally for having to play the soporifically slow skanks that Bob served up for them. And the worst by far of these slow crawls through Rastafarian mumbo-jumbo and bass stack bothering riddims was Exodus. As Bob says: “Movement of Jah People”. I am assuming Jah People were trying to get as far away from the record as possible.

The song is quite successful in suggesting how much pain, suffering and hardship an Exodus such as the one led by Moses would be. It also manages to inflict almost as much horror as the various plagues called down in the same book of the Bible. On the one hand you have locusts, on the other you have a over produced bass guitar. I think I would prefer the insects. And that is before you get to the lyrics, in which Bob is calling for a new Moses to turn up to lead his people* from Babylon to the father land. Now forgive me if I’m wrong: but if you are considering a trip from Babylon to the Fatherland, I am not sure is Moses would be your best bet. His travel agency specialises in trips from Palestine to Egypt. For a Babylon to German package you’d be better off getting a member of Boney M.

*One assumes his extended family which could well be the entire population of Jamaica by now.

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Five Better Reasons To Take U2’s Stylist To Court https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2006/11/five-better-reasons-to-take-u2s-stylist-to-court https://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2006/11/five-better-reasons-to-take-u2s-stylist-to-court#comments Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:53:36 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/five-better-reasons-to-take-u2s-stylist-to-court/ Interupting our trip through the so-called good book to marvel at this news story. U2 win battle against ex-stylist , in which U2 have won a court case against an ex-stylist because she nicked a cowboy hat off of him. Eminently responsible thing to do if you remember how stupid the band looked during the JOSHUA* Tree period.

However bearing in mind that this is U2 we are talking about I present five better reasons for U2 to take their various stylists to court.

1) Bono Muscle Suit – at least that’s what it looks like:

Bono Muscle Suit

2) Is it the Devil: no its Mr Macphisto

mcphisto.jpg

3) The Fly: If only I had a swat

flybono.jpg

4) The Red Fly: unfortunately not The Fly with blood all over it

red-fly.jpg

5) JAYSUS – MR THE EDGE!

mr_edge.gif
*Bible Of Badness hook up – yay!

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The Bible Of Badness: GENESIS https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-genesis https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-genesis#comments Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:36:55 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/the-bible-of-badness-genesis/ Bible Of BadnessIn The Beginning There Was Nothingness. IF ONLY.

In The Beginning There Was The Word. NOT THE BIRD FROM L7 PULLING DOWN HER KECKS AGAIN.

But neither of these are strictly true. Because the first book of the Bible Of Badness is Genesis. And if you were ever to question how bad this Bible could get, Collins and the rest set a mighty low standard. One wonders if it really was the Serpent that caused the fall of man, or if Adam just wanted to get away from the prog-rock band noodling in the Garden of Eden.

Ah, but to the Genesis of Genesis we need to thank Jonathon King. I am of the opinion we should thank him in the same way we thanked him for kiddie-fiddling, let’s bang him up for a few years for unleashing Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel upon us. And whilst I am no class warrior when it comes to music hating, even I can recognise that Charterhouse graduates aren’t going to make the coolest of rock stars. Unfortunately the band also recognised this and ploughed an unending furrow of anti-cool which would make them hot, if that was not also a metaphor for good in the contradictory pop world. It was a pity that their first album From Genesis To Revelation did not consist – as the title promises – of their entire career. It was even more disappointing that they were not judged at the end of time for the horrors contained within.

And so the band continued, despite being even worse that YES, with prog outpourings such as The Knife, Peter Gabriel’s nine-minute epic ode to non-violence. I have often wanted to offer my rebuke to this song, co-incidentally called The Knife and consisting of something I bought from John Lewis being used in a stabbing fashion on all of Genesis. Wonder is that they even made it to any later albums, though the title of Nursery Cryme should have been taken as a warning (and yet another veiled Jonathon King reference).

Ah yes. Phil Collins. Well need I say too much about this Tory traitor, this unartful dodger who bald-facedly (has he any other face?) told us that he couldn’t dance or couldn’t sing. Well there is no room for you in pop music then. Much of the eighties I spent trying to kill them with the power of the mind, which unfortunately backfired when the wrote Invisible Touch about me. I have been thwarted through much of their career, for example booking them to play the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway on Fulham Broadway. During rush hour. This assassination attempt like all others have failed.

old-giffers.jpg

And so we get to 2006. They apparently stopped gigging in 1999: (old giffers probably aware of an inappropriate party atmosphere).
So why have they returned? They clearly say its not for the money. And one assumes it is not for the artistic kudos (HA!) No, one can only assume it is to continue to torture us with they tedious metronomic slow chugging soft rock shite-lyriced coma-inducing er-tunes. And that is much worse than being thrown out of the garden of Eden.

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For God’s Sake… https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/for-gods-sake https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/for-gods-sake#comments Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:50:11 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/11/for-gods-sake/ Bible Of Badness“Peace be upon you, dear child. I sense a troubled soul.”

So said the man in a dress who greeted me when a stormed a big building in the City Of London, trying find the source of high pitched choral caterwauling which was distracting me from finding a bar open at the optimal drinking time of 10am on a Sunday Morning. I was taken back instantly, thinking that it must be Boy George without make-up on (a cruel trick to avoid my assassins). But it just turned out to be a priest who was trying to help.

I am not a religious woman. The gigantic organs and hymns have put me off in the past. But there was something calming about the way he placed his hand on my shoulder and quickly gestured to the choirboys to scarper. (Note this would not have stop me attacking if it had been the Quireboys.) Walking me up the nave, he continued to talk in a tone which was just off the annoying side of Baz Lurhman’s Sunscreen.

“You see full of rage and hate my child. Tell me your troubles.”

And so I told him about music, and the overwhelming awfulness of it, and how it was everywhere and how it drove me mad, and surely was a force for evil in the world. And guess what? He agreed.

“The Devil does have the best tunes, it is true, and the cruel lascivious music which permeates society is a temptation from the path of righteousness. It strikes me that you have been misunderstood in your good work. Far from a mad harpy who should buy a pair of earplugs and let others enjoy a good dance, you are fighting God’s good fight, you are one of the good guys.”

I must admit it was quite a revelation for me, to see that the Church which I had previously written off as a poor Australian U2 rip-off band actually saw me as one of them. Finally I felt understood. For at least ten seconds. And then he continued…

“Have you read this?” Slipping me a black leather-bound book. “Its the good news!”

But it wasn’t. Opening to page one what was the first word I saw.

GENESIS.

I ran out of the church as fast as my shapely legs could take me, to a religious haunt I felt more comfortable in – The Black Friar – and slaked my gin thirst until I was genetically 50% juniper. Still with the Bible in hand, I started to flick. And what a catalog of horror it was. And so I have made my own version, which you see above, which I will be excerpting from in the next few weeks. My own Bible Of Badness. (Though feel free to suggest some entries in the comments box.)

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The Buzzcocks: Ever Fallen In Hate With Someone…? https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/the-buzzcocks-ever-fallen-in-hate-with-someone https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/the-buzzcocks-ever-fallen-in-hate-with-someone#comments Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:49:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/the-buzzcocks-ever-fallen-in-hate-with-someone/ The Buzzcocks promo posterSometimes when daydreaming I imagine myself on University Challenge facing Jeremy Paxman. After dazzling him with my knowledge of all the botanicals in Bombay Sapphire, it comes to my least favourite bit: the music question. At which point he plays “Ever Fallen In Love With Someone“, which I interrupt almost instantly with the button in front of me to obliterate the music. Jezza doesn’t even have time to say “Headon, Life”, before you hear the Buzz and me saying COCKS!

That’s right, there may be a buzz in their name, but concentrate on the second half of the word.

Unlike many of their contemporaries, The Buzzcocks were well aware of the hideousness of their music. It is laid plain and simple in “Noise Annoys“. They are right, lots of noises do annoy, but very few have the potential for suicidal annoyance than a Buzzcocks record. AND THEY KNEW IT. Half arsed punk tunes with banal lyrics is all they came up with, that and a name forever to live in infamy as half of an appalling music based came show. Again BUZZ: Cocks!

But you need an example. Well okay. I don’t need my lyric microscope to eviscerate “Something’s Gone Wrong Again“. Let us examine the things which go wrong in this every day tale of not being capable to survive in the real world:

He tries to find a sock – Unfortunately it’s lost
He needs a shave – but unfortunately not only does he cut himself but he needs a new blade
He tried to fry an egg – but he breaks the yolk (which is apparently no joke, but he still could have scrambled it or turned it into an omelette)
He looks at his watch just to tell the time – but the hand’s come off. Which has NEVER HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. Shoddy watch or what!
He misses a bus. WOW!
He requires a smoke (cigarette) and uses his last 50p – what a pity the machine is broke. Thus saving him from smoking and unfortunately extending his lifespan slightly.
He turns up early in time for our date – but then his date turns up late. Not exactly sure what has gone wrong here.
He requires an alcoholic beverage so he goes to the pub – but the pub is apparently shut.
RIGHT.
This is where I’ve had it with the self pitying bastards. Surely you know what time the pubs are open? Surely if a pub is closed unexpectedly you can go to another pub. I have been drinking in London for fifteen years and never has a pubs closure been able to stop me finding a gin and tonic. (Indeed closing certain pubs, like the Intrepid Fox, is almost a speciality of mine.)

Clearly the only thing that has really gone wrong in “Something’s Gone Wrong Again” is that they “wrote” the fucking thing. Yes, the tune and the words have all “gone wrong”. Everybody’s Happy Nowadays? Not while The Buzzcocks records still exist.

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Tanya Saves The Planet https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/tanya-saves-the-planet https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/tanya-saves-the-planet#comments Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:31:09 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/tanya-saves-the-planet/ Long-term readers will know my strong commitment to green issues: every time I see a copy of REM’s apalling album I ‘orange crush’ it to destruction under a sharp stiletto.

And of course I’d like to save the planet too. In this I now have an ally in Thom Yorke, who is promising to give up touring for green reasons. Apparently, Yorke is concerned that customers before his concerts run their engines for four or five hours, queueing to get in. And that isn’t even factoring in all the fans who run their engines for four or five hours after his concert, to gas themselves.

I have myself conducted extensive studies of the environmental impact of Radiohead and the problem is worse than even Yorke believes. I lack the posh powerpoint resources of Al Gore, whose film “An Inconvenient Truth” focussed on Yorke’s brother’s band, but I am able to summarise some of my findings here:

– Noise pollution (obviously)
– Ink pollution: 10,000 squids per tour die to fund the biros that Radiohead fans use to sign up to Amnesty International (a gesture forgotten 5 minutes after the concert, except by the squid’s grieving spawn)
– Conservation: it has been proved by science that the rare Tufted Grebe is unable to mate for 3 years if exposed to only two minutes of “Pyramid Song”
– Recycling: Yorke’s reckless commitment to “originality” in music means that unlike most rock stars his band selfishly REFUSES to use old riffs, choruses etc. (except the Hollies, obviously).

The list goes on and on – I call on all readers to boycott this environmental Satan now! I’ll be right behind you, sipping an organic gin.

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What Album Covers Are Really Trying To Tell Us: 1: Queen – Greatest Hits https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-1-queen-greatest-hits https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-1-queen-greatest-hits#comments Mon, 16 Oct 2006 10:24:04 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/what-album-covers-are-really-trying-to-tell-us-1-queen-greatest-hits/ I mean its clear what Queen’s Greatest Hits Volume III was trying to tell us: they did not have that many hits. Brian May’s ad jingle (Driven By You), The Great Pretender and some Wyclef Jean old man rap cover barely pads the thing out. But sometimes album covers have secrets, which need to be teased out*. Take Queen’s Greatest Hits (as an example, though feel free to shoplift it and then destroy in the usual manner):

Greatest Hits

Pretty cheap graphic design as befits the early eighties, yes? The four stations of this anti-crucifix, vaguely reminiscent of the horrible Bohemian Rhapsody video, but on the whole just a cheap cash in disk with a knocked off cover. THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK. But look closer. The disembodied diamond, at a slight angle, what does that remind you of? Anything? How about…

General Zod in the Phantom Zone

Yes, clearly this album cover is telling us that rather than a somewhat fey rock band, Queen were actually intergalactic super-villains. Clearly the designer is suggesting that rather than being allowed to unleash their super-powered guitar rock evil anthems on the world, they should be imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. Surely the name Freddie Mercury was a hint to his extraterrestrial origins (I believe he also reveled in the supervillain name “Mr Farenheit”).

Leaving them at large was clearly risking the kind of destruction witnessed in Superman II. One can only be thankful that the President of the USA was never made to “Kneel before Mercury”. One can only imagine the horrors what would have ensued.

*Don’t even start with Abbey Road. There are no hidden secrets on the Abbey Road album cover, and the only significance of Paul in no shoes is that someone should have strewn the zebra crossing with broken glass.

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What The Cover Of King Crimson’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King” Would Look Like… https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/what-the-cover-of-king-crimsons-in-the-court-of-the-crimson-king-would-look-like https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/what-the-cover-of-king-crimsons-in-the-court-of-the-crimson-king-would-look-like#comments Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:12:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/what-the-cover-of-king-crimsons-in-the-court-of-the-crimson-king-would-look-like/ If it had a cold.

If an album cover could get a cold

If only an album cover could get a cold. And therefore by extension, flu, consumption, smallpox, yellow fever, malaria and slow, painful and eventual death. Followed by cremation.

If it had measles it would look like this.

This joke already gone too far

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DEPTH CHARGED https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/depth-charged https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/depth-charged#comments Tue, 03 Oct 2006 16:25:16 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/10/depth-charged/ The oil rig workers of the North Sea are a hardy lot, used to working in freezing, arduous, life-threatening conditions separated from their families and loved ones. Like the Foreign Legion of old, a lot of the appeal of North Sea work is the promise of escape from the intolerable realities of everyday life. Men go there fleeing from divorce, broken relationships, and grief. And new evidence suggests that ever-increasing proportion of them also go to work on oil rigs to escape the music played on TV’s Parkinson show*. 45% of all rig workers** listed “No shite AOR ballads” as their reason for choosing life on the platform.

With this in mind, it’s extremely cruel of the horrible Katie Melua to pursue them all the way to the “Troll 2” oil rig in the North Sea, to perform the ‘deepest gig of all time’. Let me make it clear at that ‘deepest’ here does not refer to the profundity of Katie Melua’s material: you would need to go a very long way down indeed (I am thinking maybe the ninth circle of Hell-ua) to find a song more arse-headed than “Nine Million Bicycles”. No, Melua was playing a gig well below sea level in order to get into the Guinness Book of Records.

If I may digress for a minute – The Guinness Book Of Records is a tosser’s charter. If I were a richer Tanya I would happily sue them for mental cruelty. The hilarious eating chapter was bad enough (mostly I’m sad that they removed it before I could make a proper stab at the gin-drinking record), but records like “Longest single”, “Longest gig”, “Most played song” – STOP ENCOURAGING THEM. Thankyou.

As for the deepest gig ever, I would be quite happy to set the limit at six feet and leave it.

*TANYA’S ADVICE FOR PEOPLE WHO GET THEIR BREAK ON THE PARKINSON SHOW.

1. You are shit.
2. You are only on it because the old goat fancies you.
3. Stop it.

**That’s a fact. It’s a thing we can’t deny.

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Tanya’s Infographic 2: Fergie vs Fergie https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/09/tanyas-infographic-2-fergie-vs-fergie https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/09/tanyas-infographic-2-fergie-vs-fergie#comments Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:38:15 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/09/tanyas-infographic-2-fergie-vs-fergie/ This time the battle is between Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas and Fergie of Manchester United. Note that both our protagonists are trying to garner votes by looking serious.

Tanya's Infographic 2: Fergie vs Fergie

Whilst I think there is a clear winner to this battle, I am willing to leave the interactive element of my comments box to see if you, the readers, agree.

(Note, as this is an independent article comparing the various merits and lack of them of both Stacy and Alex Ferguson, it is unlikely that you will be able to contact them directly via my comments box. Or indeed any other site on the web which just has their picture on them! Though as stupid comments are always welcome, feel free to try.)

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Have They Gone Yet? The Go! Team’s New Job https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/09/have-they-gone-yet-the-go-teams-new-job https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/09/have-they-gone-yet-the-go-teams-new-job#comments Tue, 05 Sep 2006 16:22:56 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2006/09/have-they-gone-yet-the-go-teams-new-job/ The GOATMEATI hate bands with punctuation in their name. I hate all bands obviously, but this marks the particular band out for special Tanya Treatment. Do you think it is any coincidence that post Screamager Therapy? vanished from our musical scene? The affectation of putting a question mark at the end of their name to perhaps simulate a question was hideously irritating – so much so that when their next single came out I made them follow their own advice. Face The Strange they implored, I made them face the strange: in this case a strange looking cricket bat which I promptly battered them with.

So to The Go! Team. ! is often used to indicate the presence of a click in Hausa, and it is in this manner I tend to interpret it for the Go! Team. Instead the click is not made by any members of the Go! Team, but rather me cocking the hammer of my gun. As such they should really be called The Go! bang ! bang ! bang ! bang ! bang ! bang Team.

Alas all is wishful thinking, I threw my gun away when I realised it shared a name with a lousy Scottish rock band. But it is not just the name that irritates about the Go! Team. Why would they call themselves that if they were no going to GO somewhere. Instead they keep hanging around, in their T-Shirts with letters spelling the name of the band like they might at any minute get lost or forget who they are. If you ever see a gig advertised for the Me Toga its probably just the Go! Team standing in the wrong order. Oh, and re-releasing Bottle Rocket. It is very important. If the Go! Team don’t re-release Bottle Rocket every three months then they would probably implode, or the world would fall apart. Which would be preferable to the perverted Ski Sunday without the skiing that consists the song.

Apparently people like them because they are “cut-up specialists”. Well excuse me, but stitching lots of bits of rubbish together JUST MAKES MORE RUBBISH. So does hiring a band at the last minute from the job centre. Which perhaps is where they have gone recently, now that surely everyone who could ever want to buy Bottle Rocket has done (idiots).

I can reveal that the Go!Team have picked up a new job between records, and it involved hiring two new members. Yes, the Goat Marketing board now have them on board to try and push their nutritious, goaty goodness to the population.

If that fails, they could always audition to be the letters on Countdown.

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