Soda Jerk

Cinemas are just a harrowing experience because everyone who goes to them is a bastard. Have you ever seen a film at the cinema where people didn't turn up late, loudly? There is no such thing. You could be watching the one and only screening of a completely unknown foreign film at midnight, and someone would still turn up late, post-trailers, and unzip the biggest, noisiest coat in the seat right next to you, and light up their face with their mobile phone on full brightness for the whole film. Keep the mates. Avoid cinemas forever.

Pushy people on eBay, again. I thought it was just record buyers, but it's everyone. I've listed my iPad, as I haven't used it in about a year. Within half an hour, I get 5 messages asking for the Buy It Now price. Not "Would you be willing to put a Buy it Now price up?". No. A straight "What is the buy it now price" from all 5 of these goobers, like I have one but haven't told them. I send them all a generic "Sorry, no BIN price. Auction only". One of them has been a persistent little shite though. He comes back and says "I will pay £220 including P&P to USA. Please e-mail me your Paypal address to my e-mail address below so I can pay you." Then he signs off with "God Bless America". I don't have time for this. I copy and paste him what I told him the first time. He again replies "£220 waiting. What is your address so I can make prompt payment". I'm going to ignore him. If he send me another message, I'll take his £220, and mail him a bag of cat shit.

Everytime I Die at The Tunnels. Sometime in 2008. Was alright. I'm not particularly in to them, bar one or two songs. First ever gig was Less Than Jake in '99, Leeds Cockpit (RIP)

Awesome. I'll give it a download asap!

Unfortunately not, I'm darn sarf now. No plans to put it all up on Bandcamp for a few quid? If not, I'd be up for Paypalling a few quid your way for a digital copy (save on postage, and I also don't have a CD player anymore!)

Love a good near-post smash. You don't see them too often. Drogba and Torres were particularly good at them. That one is a good hit. Good to see Balotelli being less of an idiot and more of a footballer in France. There seems to be a highlight of something good he's done most weeks. He even does something resembling a smile in that celebration.

Trying to catch up on 2017 releases I've not heard yet. Spun the new(ish) Joey Badass record yesterday. It's called All AmeriKKKan Badass, further emphasising his badassery. What the hell happened? It's not at all badass. He's gone pop as fuck. Kid can still rhyme, but there's too much singing and RnB nonsense. That first mixtape still totally rips. IMO everything he's done since has been slightly less good than what came before it. 3 and a half thumbs down. Gave a couple of goes to the new M.O.D. record that's been delayed forever and finally came out this year. Y'all know I am all about crossover thrash, no matter how generic and trite, but this is a bit of a stinker. Love those first 4 records. They've been terrible for ages. Billy says this is the last record they'll do. Good. Avoid.

Finally got stuck in to Narcos, after putting it off for ages. I now know loads of Spanish swear words

New HWM record. Verdict after 2 plays through: Zzzzzzz. It sounds like a bad Foo Fighters album. Everything about it is boring. The only positive is that it's slightly better than Exister, which was just an electric Chuck Ragan record, pretty much. This sounds a lot more like the band than Exister did, but it's just... so... boring. I haven't been into anything they've done since Caution, and I haven't really liked anything they've done since A Flight and a Crash. They're one of the best bands I've seen live, and back then their show was just so intense. They used to only play for 25 minutes, but there's no way they could play longer. Hard to believe they're making music as tame as this now. This record has been "coming soon" for years now. Loved Cognicide a lot, which came out 12 years ago! This is quite different. Still got that ripping 80s hardcore thing going on, but with a lot more boisterous ROCK. Gets better with every listen. Best punk LP of the year so far for me. That will possibly change when Propagandhi record comes out in two weeks. I've read two reviews of this and both make reference to early Swans and Bjork. I'd say that's pretty spot on. Funnily enough, the first comment on this record on their Bandcamp page says the same! Great record. I'd not heard them before. I didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this. New Loincloth comes out in 2 weeks too. New track sounds great

We used the cable that was already attached to a mic behind a pop shield. I assume whoever set that up knew what they were doing. Recording is stupid.

Neat. I think I'll pick one up in the very near future, so we can do vocals on our own time next time, and do the louder stuff in the studio. Might not have been the mics, but no idea what it could be. We recorded everything the same way, through the console, tried every mic we could find. The only thing we didn't swap was the cable. We also didn't try a different input on the console. Could have been a knackered cable, though I would have thought that would result in no sound at all, rather than tinny lofi sound.

I got a free sample of one with my shopping a month or so back. The result was weak. It didn't seem like it had enough coffee in it to make a full mug. You'd probably need two to make a decent cup.

I have no idea of the specific mic. We tried a few. We recorded it at work (a college) in the music tech rooms, so it all went through the enormous console. We had only a vague idea of what we were doing. We took mics out of the case labelled "vocals" and they were all set up behind a pop shield. The result every time was low fidelity tinny recordings, whereas mics infront of the guitar and bass amps sounded great. In hindsight we should have just yelled in to the guitar amp mics as we knew they worked and time was a factor. We thrashed it all out in less than an hour and a half so no time to think. We could do them again but we can't get booked in to the room again til November. Unless we try ourselves through some sort of interface. Whats a good, affordable mic for vocal recording? If we can get something reasonable, we could try to redo them in GarageBand or something.

Anybody got any tips on recording vocals? From the mic, down to any FX, EQ, compression etc used? My band recorded a demo yesterday. It was very rushed so we didn't have too much time to experiment. I don't know jack about microphones, but no matter which one we used, we couldn't get the vocals to not sound like they'd been recorded over the phone. I think we're going to have to make do, and just throw a heap of Beastie Boys-esque distortion over them, which is what I tend to do anyway. But some tips would be good for future recordings.

He is a total crackpot, and he always seems angry for some reason. Though I am glad he turns that utmost incompetency into some form of entertainment. I'd take 10 Garth Crooks over one of Robbie Savage, Michael Owen and Steve McManaman.

Oh, and De Boer being sacked after 4 games. Is there a worse sacking in the Premier League to date? Palace have told the BBC they had no confidence in De Boer 2 weeks ago. By binning him after that, you're highlighting your own incompetency more than the managers. Steve Parish is definitely one of the worst people involved in Football, bettered only by Gold and Sullivan at West Ham

Garth Crooks agrees. And let's just take a moment to appreciate Garth Crooks as an elite pundit. For the uninitiated, he puts together a weekly Team of the Week (always a Sunday, because fuck Monday Night Football, right Garth?). He picks 11 players and writes a little blurb about why he includes them. He's started using the blurb space to have a mental rant. They're just the best. Here's why he included Kevin De Bruyne in his team of the week this week: Two lines about Kevin De Bruyne, then a quick revisit to a World Cup that happened 35 years ago and a tirade on tackling. Superb. And what better way to praise Choupo-Moting's brace for Stoke than sticking it to Paul Pogba's haircut? His inclusion of Christian Eriksen turned in to some waffle about Wembley stadium, and Benjamin Mendy's praise ended in sticking the boot into Liverpool's "rubbish" back four. And that's just this week's article. Lord Garth is some boy.

I've often thought the same about overhead volleys and wondered how they're allowed without repercussion. I remember Benteke's one against United. Herrera motioned to head the ball and immediately pulls out as Benteke lashes it in. If Herrera doesn't pull out, he's possibly nodding the ball past Benteke and getting a full pelt kick to the face. There was no contact and the result was a spectacular goal. As you say, it's split second differences. High feet already seems to be a rule that is haphazardly applied in the game, and its often based on the outcome. Rightly or wrongly, referees act more when it results in contact or an injury. I'd argue Mane's flying kick is a red card even if he misses Ederson, but I doubt it would have been given. On the flip side, A lot of two footers are given as straight reds even when they're not particularly dangerous or any significant contact is made. It's incredibly patchy and there probably isn't a way for it to be consistent, even more so with high feet. Every 50/50 carries a risk, as does every header etc. But flying in to a 50/50 with your studs up 6ft off the ground surely has to be prohibited. Ederson goes in to the same challenge attempting a standing header. He is not out of control or using excessive force. Ederson knows he could get clattered in to but he shouldn't ever be expecting to take a set of studs to the face. The ball is high, Mane has to try and win that ball with his head like Ederson is doing, or try to shield it from Ederson with his body. I don't think Mane has been nasty or violent but he's definitely made the wrong decision and it's resulted in serious injury. I don't understand how it's seen as a controversial sending off. It's as nailed on as it gets IMO.

I'd forgotten about the Nani one actually, and there are similarities. I think the amount of force is important though. Was it excessive? Mane, probably the fastest player in the league, running full tilt towards the ball and Ederson. I don't think the force used by Nani was close to that. A lot of pundits at the time seemed to agree it was a red card though, and Graham Poll on Sky Sports News backed the referee and agreed it was a red. The sense of injustice seemed to come mostly from United fans, as you'd expect. Reading other forums, and Reddit, a lot of Liverpool fans seem to agree that Mane's challenge was a red. Oddly, the ones disagreeing in mass are the ex pros. I don't know what they're seeing that others aren't. Would they be alright taking a boot to the face and it not resulting in a red card? I'd doubt it.

Accidental doesn't come into the rules though. Reckless, excessive force and out of control all do, and it is all 3. And he has to know where Ederson is, otherwise he doesn't make a flying mid air attempt to control the ball. He would wait for it to drop infront of him if he doesn't think he is there. Ederson is the reason he's flying through the air in the first place.

So, Mane's red card. Gary Neville was up in arms that it was absolutely not a red. "Yellow at most" he said. He was not the only one. A number of ex pros on Twitter blew up as it happened. Robbie Fowler reckons "the game has gone" because you're no longer allowed to jump 6 feet in the air and boot a goalkeeper in the face, unlike in the good old days, or something. On what planet is studding a goalkeeper in the face with a kung-fu kick not a red card? What are the ex pros seeing here that the armchair folk aren't? Remember at the World Cup, when Nigel De Jong studs-up karate kicked Xabi Alonso right in the lungs, and the world was utterly bemused that it wasn't a red card. Google image search "Worst football tackle" and De Jong studding Alonso appears 5 times before you even have to scroll down. This is the same challenge, but replace lungs with FACE, and the result was almost 10 minutes of stoppage with Ederson leaving the pitch strapped to a stretcher. If he's got broken face bones, then he's out for a while. Players have been sent off for sliding on the ground but catching the opposing player on the knee. Players have been sent off for sliding in with two feet on the ground and not catching the player at all. Neville defends it by saying "his eyes are on the ball". The rules do not excuse that, and every letter of the law says it is a red card, no matter what he's looking at. The letter of the law even implies that it's a red card even if he misses Ederson, because it's still excessive force and reckless disregard for an opponent. However, he doesn't miss. He's smashed him right in the mouth. It's an absolutely concrete reddest of red cards, right?

I had no idea this band existed. Two members of The Marked Men playing garage powerpop that sounds like The Marked Men. Joyous melodies. https://dirtnaprecords.bandcamp.com/album/radioactivity-s-t

You're right, looking at that photo, it does look very similar to a Staytrem.

Staytrem bridges are less than half the price and are super solid pieces of kit.

I think I'm too far in to the countryside to get same day delivery. And far too south. The Amazon warehouse for the UK is in Fife, isn't it? Their couriers are still garbage though. I have to get stuff sent to an Amazon Locker, or it just doesn't arrive.