Thursday, November 17, 2005

CELEBRITY ENCOUNTER #2


And here is me with Dave Mitchell (aka Mark from Peep Show!) who I met at a preview screening of the BBC's 21st century take on 'The Taming of the Shrew'. I will stop stalking celebrities and get back to writing caustic asides on the futility of modern living soon, promise...

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

'IT WAS A GOOD CAR, UNTIL I GOT SHOT IN IT'


Here is me with widely-ridiculed Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood. You will see how he is trying to initiate me in the ways of the 'hood', and how I succeed in merely looking slightly awkward. Behind us is the blinged-up Westwood team van, with an estimated £50,000 of gear installed, including swivelling, airline-style captain chairs and an impractically large sound system. It beggars belief. Once I get around to transcribing the interview, I will post some of his best quotes on here...

TROUBLED DREAMS

By a strange coincidence, two of my favourite mordant misanthropists, Bret Easton Ellis and Michel Houellebecq, have published their new novels within a week of each other... Both authors appear to have been operating under the law of diminishing returns since their definitive novels ('Less Than Zero' and 'Atomised' respectively...) so fingers crossed they've bucked the trend. I picked up both books yesterday, anyway: Lunar Park is already giving me nightmares...

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Y-CHROMOSOME DYSFUNCTION (REVISITED)

My favourite TV comedy series Peep Show returns to our screens for its third run on Friday. The first two series were cult hits rather than massive rating-pullers, and Channel 4 initially dragged its heels about commissioning a third series. Thankfully, the huge kudos the show received from comedy stalwarts Ricky Gervais, Iain Morris, et al ensured it got another series. As the Guide points out this week: 'one day they'll all be too famous to make any more and that will be rubbish'.

Enjoyment of Peep Show is necessarily tempered by the realisation that it's a refined sort of masochism: it lays bare many of the more unsympathetic traits of the human condition, and in doing so taps into a peculiarly male cocktail of self-absorption and self-loathing. The programme's USP is that you get to hear the main two characters' internal monologues, which seems pretty canny given that both Mark and Jeremy's default position is blind solipsism. They are essentially two sides of the same coin: Jeremy the workshy deadbeat with delusions of being an edgy hipster, Mark the repressed office drone, a simmering cauldron of sexual and emotional inadequacy. Both greet the adult world with an abject terror which, perversely, feels almost heroic.

Whereas, say, Nick Hornby manages to wrap male neurosis in a sort of wholesome, blokeish package which might almost be viewed as charming, Peep Show exposes the male psyche to a harsh and unforgiving scrutiny which will have you despairing for the future of the world. Or, at the very least, yourself...

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE PEEP SHOW LINES

Jeremy on University: "I was there in the golden years, the mid-'90s, Britpop was kicking off, Four Weddings was out, it was mental."

Jeremy to Mark: "My mate and your girl have just gone off to fuck each other. So what are we going to do now, Mark? Build a tent in the lounge and eat Dairy Lea? Is that what you want? Cos that's what's gonna happen."

Mark: "Sure, an orgy might sound great, but when you think about it you're just multiplying the number of people you won't be able to look in the eye afterwards."

Mark on his sexuality: "I'm the sort of person who would be gay, and then repress it even to myself". And later: "I'm not gay, I may be Bi, but frankly not very curious."

Mark, on buying shoes: "Maybe I'll go for brown brogues? Nah, better stick to black, don't want to go completely mental."

Mark, on seeing rival Jeff drive off with love interest Sophie: "This is the worst thing that's happened to anyone, ever."

Thursday, November 03, 2005

BEST OF 2005


A couple of reviews I wrote for Disorder magazine's end of year issue...

Gorillaz - Demon Days (Parlophone/EMI)

Ten years on from Country House, the idea of Damon Albarn still dictating the musical Zeitgeist seems faintly absurd, yet no album in 2005 announced itself with quite such overzealous imagination or radical intent as Gorillaz second opus. The secret weapon here is Danger Mouse, whose dazzling production tricks and deft hip-hop flourishes prove the perfect catalyst for Albarn's scratchy dub-pop melodies to sprout wings. Highlights? Roots Manuva and Martina Topley Bird sparring on discordant electro-racket 'All Alone'; Dennis Hopper's warped Gonzo monologue on 'Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head'; the way 'O Green World' simmers with menacing invention. And that barely leaves time to mention Gorillaz two bona fide summer anthems, 'Feel Good Inc' and 'DARE'. Dismiss them as a novelty band at your peril: 'Demon Days' is a sprawlingly ambitious, dizzyingly eclectic masterpiece which puts the rest of the pop fraternity to shame.

The Go! Team - Bottle Rocket (Memphis Industries)

Anyone who saw the Go! Team live this year will know that the recorded experience can never quite compare to the visceral impact of watching frontwoman Ninja in full flow, but as call-to-arms go "come on everybody let's rock this place" is right up there with the Beasties urging us to fight for our right to party. Heady, intoxicating and drenched in euphoric brass, this sublime slice of mashed-up Motown revivalism is an uncomplicated, unadulterated pop thrill. Somebody should have slipped the Mercury judges an E.