HummerOfIntenseEvil

I saw Tippi once and I was less than impressed. She wasn't dramatically shite or anything, but it was nothing to get excited about, and she struck me as a bit of a Karen O wannabe... I wasn't impressed with being practically deafened when she sang Black Dog by Zep either. Granted, the guitarist played it pretty much note perfect (although I do have it on CD...), but never before has the term "ear-piercing" been so true. But each to their own and all that.

It's weird, I was just wondering to someone the other day who the celebrity death who was actually worth grieving over would be this year. Joe in 2002, Bob Monkhouse last year... bugger that it had to be John Peel this year. Here's a story from Seymour Glass from Miss Black America which I think highlights why John Peel was liked by everyone ever: "So I'll just tell you about the last time he rang me, and we got talking about punk, and the Sex Pistols, and told me about the time in the late seventies when he and another Radio One DJ were sat outside a cafe in Waterloo Station, eating pizza, when they noticed Steve Jones from the Pistols and a bunch of punk hangers-on looking hard at some benches nearby. Jones clocked Peel sat there, said something to his associates, and walked over to where Peel was sitting. "Excuse me, mate," said Jones, "I think you're a cunt." "Oh, right" said Peel, and carried on eating his pizza. "Did you hear what I said?" said Jones, "I think you're a CUNT." Peel put down his pizza, stood up to face the guitarist and told him, "Look, I know that what you want is to fight me so you can win and look hard in front of your mates. To be honest, I can't be bothered to fight you 'cause I'm hungry and I'm only going to lose. So if you're going to punch me, do it now and then I can carry on eating my pizza." Jones looked completely baffled, stared at Peel for a few seconds more, muttered "cunt" one more time, and then shuffled off back to his mates."

Yeah. But I'm pretty sure none of them were called Ken. Ho ho ho. Thumbs up to the old guy who was taking him on.

Did you see the skinhead guy in the report on Reporting Scotland? What a fool.

I would say The Clash. The Pistols may have created punk, but they also destroyed it. You just have to watch The Filth And The Fury to see that, like the guy who's sitting on a wall shouting "Piss, fuck, bollocks, Bill Grundy's a cunt" and the Amercian guy who goes "get the fuck outta here!" They made people think punk was just an excuse to say fuck, whereas the Clash were trying to say it was about challenging the status quo. The Pistols' songs said they were angry. The Clash's songs were saying they were angry, WHY they they were angry and what could be done about it. What was going on inside the band may have been a little bit contradictory to this, but it's what they were saying that is important. Never Mind The Bollocks is an amazing album if you do what it says on the cover. The Clash may have it's fair share of pish too (the UK version anyway), but when it's good, it's better than the Pistols stuff. And the stuff between the debut and Give Em Enough Rope is absolutely phenomenal. The Clash have their fair share of pish songs, but then they did release over 9 albums worth of material, so that was obviously going to happen. What it all comes down to, for me, is that while those neanderthal fools Oasis may claim that the Pistols were an influence on them, the Manics would name the Clash as their big influence. So I vote for the band who instigated intelligence rather than ignorance: The Clash. If not them then Led Zep, cos they created heavy metal.

Aw why not? What if I say they're equally as good, but place my one below Adam and Joe's one, if only by alphabetical order? So it's in second place, sort of.

Hahaha!!!! Nice! Ahhhhh, I wonder what I'd do if I ever saw the name Richey Edwards anywhere?

I'm listening to Downwards Convergance just now. I'm liking it quite a lot. Especially from about 3 minutes onwards where the tempo speeds up a bit. And now I've got A Wrok In Progress on. Also good. I have now put a reminder into my phone about the gig.

At least he's not taking the piss to quite the extremes of Liam Howlett and Axl Rose I suppose.

No, that would be Adam and Jo's sketch when they took the % free out of everything!

When I went into the Portlethen Asda a while back, they were offering samples of the new Chocolate Orange ice-cream. As a result of the sample, I went home with 4 tubs. If someone had offered me a free Mars bar when I was little, I might not have waited before I was 21 before eating one. Many shopkeepers over the years have thus missed out on the oppertunity to get money from me because I always assumed I'd hate nougat. Saying that, you talk sense.

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH my favourite subject!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I download music. When I do, it's usually live gigs by my favourite artists (I have a fair few Tomahawk, Manics and Clash gigs) or b-sides which are no longer available. As these are unavailable to buy, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. Sometimes I download an album track by someone I've heard of who intrigues me, but I want to be sure I will actually like them before buying the album. This way there is less chance I will end up spending 10 on an album I end up hating. As a result, I have been buying an average of an album a week the past year or so. Before I downloaded music, I was very careful to make sure I would DEFINITELY like a band before buying their album, and as a result only bought CDs about once a month, if that. Technically this is stealing, but as it usually ends up with me buying the album, I daresay the artists in question wouldn't mind. And if I don't buy the album then they shouldn't be so shite. However, I am dismayed by the number of people who see no problem with downloading entire albums. It's one of the things I regularly slag off a few of my workmates about for doing. It gives off an impression of thinking that we all have a right to own any music we wnat, which is not the case. And if we all downloaded albums instead of buying them, then when exactly would the bands have time to record their music? Certainly not between 9am and 5pm, cos they'd all be working, since they wouldn't be able to make a living out of their music. Free music would be all well and good under a communist regime, but we aren't a communist country (probably just as well we aren't since we'd just get bombed by America) and as such, commodities such as music have to be paid for. However, I would never even think about paying for a download. When I pay for music, I want the whole chebang; CD and artwork. On nicely pressed CDs and nicely printed paper, nae a tacky Maxell CD-R and some shitty printing paper. Basically, I think all bands should put all non-purchasable songs on their websites, along with a couple of tunes from all their albums. Then people have no excuse for downloading music illegally, and I would gratefully give up Soulseek if this were to happen. I have slightly strong feelings on this.

www.nin.com might have some useful info, like a tracklisting or something. I would look myself, but I can't be arsed.

Well basically I'm a very fussy bastard, trying to put together a band of people who will do what I tell them to do. Surprisingly, I've not had much success yet... I have about 40 useable-but-in-need-of-a-bit-of-tweaking lyrics (Clash/Manics type stuff) and I have lots of bits of music (suppose I'd call it Clash/Manics/Alice In Chains type stuff) but I have no actual songs as such, although it wouldn't take much to put them together. However, I am as yet undecided whether or not I am prepared to let someone else sing my lyrics... it would certainly allow me to concentrate on the guitar, and my voice is probably best described as a cross between Joe Strummer and Ian Curtis, with a fair capacity to bellow like nothing else, ie I'm rather out of tune. But I ain't no Mike Patton or James Dean Bradfield, and they're my favourite vocalists.

Get hold of Mit Gas by Tomahawk and Album Of The Year by Faith No More. If you can sound anything like the greatness that is Mike Patton, then you can give me a call

The Cloud Report seems to have a thing for the L key.