Jack Cohen impedes my viewing.

I subscribe to Tesco’s DVD rental serivce – an offshoot of Screenselect – and so far things haven’t been too bad. I’ve been going at it, so to speak, since April and chalked up a total of about ten shiny discs so far (which isn’t bad going, seen as they only send me one at a time) out of an ever-increasing list of 421.

I was more than pleasantly surprised when John Curran’s We Don’t Live Here Anymore splashed through the letterbox. After all, it’s been touted as a modern education in misguided marriage and features an impressive smattering of talent, (Lynch cohorts Laura Dern and Naomi Watts, Mark Ruffalo, Six Feet Under’s Peter Krause) along with mostly gushing reviews from my one-stop Metacritic.

Due to the neglect of my predecessors, the extreme sensitivity – and unlockability – of my Sony, and the bottom-side of a disc while raped by African tribesmen and scratched out of all proportion by Sharon Stone’s masseuse, I was forced to relocate to my computer. No biggy. I must’ve given it about fifty minutes before I finally gave up: not, you understand, because of the film’s quality (although it wasn’t up to much), rather it had more false starts than Linford Christie and skipped merrily to and fro as much as a French waif does on a Friday. Which is a shame because I had my review all neatly lined out, replete with phrases like ‘mirthlessly vindictive’ and ‘glabrous paucity’.

What I did ascertain from my largely joyless fifty minutes was that We Don’t Live Here Anymore is to marriage what 2005’s Crash was to race: an overreached stab at an ‘adult’ interpretation of modern disillusionment. Characters were uniformly and lankily disjointed by consistently slight, dreary and clunky dialogue (“You know, you're a funny girl. After a long carnivorous fuck, you're talking about a marriage counsellor? Who are you?”) relying on belligerent, contradictory shock tactics . In fact, the whole thing felt like a contradiction in terms. Even the usually vivacious Naomi Watts was surprisingly unremarkable.

The movie centres around four self-pitying and unhappy adulterers – Terry and Jack, a couple of dull penny-squeezers, as well as Edith and Hank, two individuals living in an idyllic state of haute arrested development. They all do each other over for reasons stupidly specified, much in the way Closer had its protagonists gallivant around gaily for two hours, but at least Mike Nichols had the decency to inject a little warmth and morality into the whole bloody affair.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so jarred. The warning signs were there. House of Sand and Fog, a movie well-meaning but intrinsically blah, took its source material from Andre Dubus III. Anymore has its taken from Andre Dubus Sr. and clearly Pa’s had an effect on the sprout. House of Sand and Fog buckles under its own pretension not because of the impressive performances from Jennifer Connelly and [Sir] Ben Kingsley, instead it collapses in a wave of churlish melodrama; something Curran’s movie pretty much epitomises, at least for the fifty minutes I saw. It’s simply not worth the wealth put into it.

My rental died the death just as Dern and Krause were about to do the dirty. If they were younger, more attractive, and not so absorbed in their dull little lives, it would’ve been a crying shame. Instead, I can always rely upon the mirthlessly vindictive to shower me with blessings in disguise. Perhaps the second hour redeemed this film in some way, or maybe it wallowed in its frass a little longer. Either way, I’m not in a hurry to find out any time soon.

Pitchfork and Music and Technology

So a little while ago I wrote this on my personal blog:
"An unexpected thing happened today. I geeked out over a Pitchfork article.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/features/weekly/06-05-22-better-than-we-know-ourselves.shtml
Yes those bastards once again proved that whilst I may disagree with them on everything ever, they are rather good. This kind of music tracking/recommending type technology is something that I find ridiculously cool. So, as such I will shortly be trying (and of course, reporting back to you) on a couple of these things - 1. MusicIP Mixer and 2. Audiobaba."

And I did try them. In fact I even got to try the full paid for version of MusicIP thanks to some kind person from their PR department (well, someone from MusicIP who saw my blog and sent me an unlock code). Do not worry. This won't sway my review at all because I really couldn't tell any difference between the paid for and unpaid versions. I mean I'm sure there's some extra features in there but I'm damned if I can find/use them.

Audiobaba has been uninstalled. That is probably the most damning review I can give it but it had to be done. It's not that it did badly at playlisting, more that every time it was started it told me that that 1640 new music files had been added and needed to be synchronised. Which would take 20 hours. This was exceedingly annoying.

Music IP Mixer meanwhile provided equally good playlists (generally conforming to the feel of the starting song if not the mood) and never had to rescan the entire library. And it did it's initial indexing much quicker too. Resultingly, should I ever know that I want to listen to 6 songs that are a bit like The Boy with the Arab Strap, I shall turn to Music IP Mixer. In fact hey, let's do that now and see what playlist we get.

So, I load up Music IP Mixer, search for Belle and Sebastian, right click on Boy with the Arab Strap, select Create Mix and voila...

1. The Boy with the Arab Strap by Belle and Sebastian
2. Cigarettes Will Kill You by Ben Lee - Very different mood, more bitter and less bouncey, but similar instrumentation and I certainly wouldn't mind it coming up.
3. Flying Foxes by Moby - I'd guess the piano is the reason this is here. And B&S and and Moby are both inherantly summery.
4. Lovers in a Dangerous TIme by Barenaked Ladies - Similar in mood to Cigarettes Will Kill You, no real instrumental links to the start song. But still very good and not out of place here.
5. Too Young by Phoenix - Definitely as bouncey as Arab Strap, but in a far more dancey way. Goodness knows how Music IP decided that everyone's second favourite French band would fit in here, but they do.
6. Rent a Cop by Ben Folds - My favourite track from the Super D EP (which I recently purchased, review soon) seems a little out of place here. The rhythmic piano give it a tenuous link to the starting point.

I realise that as far as an assessment of how well it works goes, this is useless unless you''re familiar with all those songs.

But still : I probably wouldn't strongly recommend either of these programmes just yet. Give the tech wizards a few more years and perhaps magical playlist generation will be able to give you the perfect song based on mood/location/time of day. Until then, just keep listening to whatever Pitchfork tells you to. I mean, uh... Music you like.

Coming Up this Week: Some reviews of records Miles bought in the last month.

United 93

United 93 is a difficult film. Difficult to make, difficult to see and difficult to write about. It's uncomfortable to watch. It is not a sentimental soulless disaster cash in. And it may not be an entirely true version of events.

The "build up" to the hijacking is tense from the start. The first scenes show the terrorists praying the night before their flight. We then see the various charachters arriving to work at the airport, boarding the plane and so on. The attack on the World Trade Centre disaster is kept distant, seen on TV monitors and in the distance. The scenes in Air Traffic Control and similar places become worried and frantic but quietly so.

Once the hijacking starts, the scenes on board United 93 are intensely unpleasant to see even though the majority of the violence is not seen and certainly not shown graphically. Here is perhaps where the film could be accused of stumbling a little. It would work better if once the hijack started we stuck with the plane, but unwisely the narrative jumps back to ATC and the military air base. There is a somewhat questionable sequence where the prayers of passengers and terrorists are rapidly intercut but mercifully less than 60 seconds is spent showing the final phone calls of passengers. And the final 30 seconds or so are probably the most afectingly brutal 30 seconds in any film you'll see this year.

Also slightly suspect is the epilogue which bluntly points out the incompitance of the military and government in dealing with the situation. Personally I can see nothing wrong with this but I think it's what's caused some people to brand the film as "politically motivated" and "America hating".

United 93 is a good film. I'm not sure if it's essential. It's definitely moving. It's definitely been made with good intentions. But know that you are not going to enjoy this movie. You perhaps will, however, apreciate it.

Member IV: The Quest For Peace

Samuel Price is a simple, country boy - one might say a cock-eyed optimist- with a borderline personality disorder and a passionate bloodlust for the whimsy of Larry David and the schizoid rumination of David Lynch. To his contemporaries: a pale, friendless virgin.

I'm trying to broaden my horizons currently by picking a band for every country around the world. At first this may seem easy (Sloan for Canada, NZ: anything from the Dunedin mould, for Australia The Birthday Party, Japan had the wacky Happy End, and so forth) but it's quickly become something of an erectile challenge which keeps me up at night.

There's an odd phenomenon which seems to sermonise itself to me whenever I feel the need to relieve myself by way of fibre egestion. I sit on the ergonomics, crank my first one out, and the familiar onomatopoeic plop distils my heart. And yet when I creep over bowl, and bowel, I am greeted by nothing but white water. Nothing materialises on the first drop. This is a regular occurrence, and something which troubles me greatly, but seems an apt justification of my life thus far; a long uphill struggle characterised by heinous embarrassment and -more pickly- a fruitless nothing in particular. So excuse me if I shit all over the page.

I'm really a very nice person :)

Cigarettes in Space

It's been one of those high-level-of-media-consumption weekends. So far: Three films, two albums, a bunch of comics and I finally finished JPod by Douglas Coupland. I'm going to split up my reviews into seperate posts, first up: A film.

But before the actual fim - Yahoo Movies. I think Yahoo want it to be the common man's IMDB. Which is a noble enough aim. I like it for it's easy to use rating system and resulting movie reccomandations. It also allows user reviews, which I occasionally indulge in and are sometimes useful.
Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, Yahoo Movies (and to a lesser degree IMDB) is not your political soapbox. I don't care if you think the liberal conspiracy (pfft) has taken over Hollywood, just cause you voted Bush is no reason to pan a movie for having a lefty main charachter. And just because you're a hardline Christian that doesn't actually make The Passion a better movie.

This comes up because the first film I saw this weekend was Thank You For Smoking. Somebody had posted a review saying "This film will annoy the liberals". Somebody was wrong. TYFS is a satirical comedy. It's funny. The acting is good all round. Rob Lowe and That Kid From The OC have fantastic small roles. Game over, the movie's good, go see it, goodnight.

Still here? Ace. Let's adress that "liberals" issue first. I don't think this film is arguing either for or against smoking. It's not clearly pro or anti liberal. I'd say it's quite wonderfully amoral. Yes the "villain" of sorts is a liberal senator. But did that reviewer not notice that he was an extreme charicature of liberalism in such a way that only a lefty could write? Meanwhile the conseravitive charachters are equally ridiculous but somewhat more subtly so. Wherever you stand on smoking, you'll find something to laugh at.
This has been described as a cynical film. I'd disagree flat out with that. We here at Sugar and Noise have a ban on the word "heartwarming" but it really is. And it achieves this without being "schmaltzy" (The best film-reviewer word ever) or overly sentimental..
So go see it. Find a fellow good looking young self styled pseudo-intelectual and go have a good laugh, safe from the cinema going masses who you will pass as they make their way into Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. It really is the only worthwhile film in cinemas at the moment. Except perhaps for the third of the three films I saw this weekend (more on that later) or if you're lucky enough to be within driving distance of somewhere showing Brick.

If I had an EZ Archive account, I'd be posting mp3s of Cigarettes Will Kill You by Ben Lee and Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo by Harvey Danger ("The Marlboro man died of cancer/Aaand he wasn't a rocket scientist when he was healthy, hahah")

Midnight Oil and Music as a kid.

This week, I've done such pop culture related things as denounce Che Gevloviniro, and attempted to replace him with Ghandi… which hasn't worked because shirts are expensive and people are rubbish.
This is as good a place as any to advertise, so if you're interested in a shirt that looks like this:

drop me an e-mail on fergal@5starbedsit.co.uk (this is a UK thing really).

I could go into all that a lot, but I don't think it's interesting enough (well OK, I do, but I havn't had a great response about it so far… maybe if there's enough begging comments for a post on it from our non existent readers…)

So I need to talk about something else. Everyone else has done some sort of review or opinion on musics lately, so I guess I could get away with doing that.

You know who the first band I ever listened to were? Midnight Oil: a political Australian Rock band, who's main issues were about how Australia had been taken from the Aborigines, as well as other stuff about how the land (specifically Australia) is being abused. They're not that unheard of, they were pretty popular, so if we had any readers, there's a chance they would have heard of them. I first listened to their Album Diesel and Dust when I was 3, 7 years after the album came out. It is then that I gained a concept of a "favourite band", despite them being really the only band I had heard… for the next 10 or so years, if anyone asked who my favourite band was, I'd say Midnight Oil. I first listened to the whole album in the sitting room of our old house, sitting infront of the stereo, and my Dad tried to explain what each of the instruments I was hearing were, which is actually moderately hard- having to describe what sound an instrument made, without the person your explaining to ever having seen the instrument played before. I remember eventually realising that the bass, the guitar, and the keyboards were all different instruments- which I know sounds basic, but when you're a kid, picking stuff apart like that isn't what you naturally do (well it wasn't for me); before, it was just music.

The music I listened to as I grew up was pretty much dictated by whatever my parents liked playing in the house or in the car. There was just the one Midnight Oil album, and it wasn't remembered that often. And so, I ended up listening to other great bands like The Who, Level 42, Prefab Sprout and Santana. The stuff I heard the most though were Steely Dan and The Robert Cray band. So many Steely Dan songs I am incapable of forgetting now, after the long hours of car journeys and background spent listening to them. Unsurprisingly enough, although I think Steely Dan is great, I still havn't put any on iTunes, just 'cos I still need to recover from it. Robert Cray I've started putting on my iTunes a few months ago- and am thoroughly enjoying all over again (side note: Robert Cray was the first band I ever saw live- at the Manchester Apollo, I loved it.).

Ofcourse I am not at all upset about missing out on the the latest popular songs on the Radio- as I discovered when I took the bus to my 3rd primary school. All the good stuff still got through to the family CD collection, like R.E.M. If I ended up listening to the Radio at an earlier point in my life, I'd hate to think what kind of person I would be now…

Back to Midnight Oil, a few months ago, I found the CD I hadn't listened to since I was 6, and discovered I could remember every song perfectly, and even after everything I had listened to since I still considered the songs to be great pop or rock songs. They were easy to sing to, the guitar and keyboard parts were interesting as well as moderately simple, the obligatory use of 80s style effects was tasteful. If you're short of something to listen to, and you want something that just sounds good, and has relevant, if slightly out of date messages to it (to be honest though, morals and good messages never go out of date), I would recommend Midnight Oil, especially any Live recordings, most of their tracks are dynamic enough for a live performance to really just perfect it ( I picked up Scream In Blue - Live off iTunes and instantly played it over so many times it got near my top albums). In the same way Prefab Sprout makes the perfect softer or more relaxed pop songs, Midnight Oil make the perfect more edgy pop/rock songs.

If you weren't sure, this post was about how great Midnight Oil is, and a slight look into how the music you listen to as a kid comes back to you, and how it affects what you come to like. Lets hope you listened to good music as a kid eh. Also, as a total non-parent, I suggest never letting your kid listen to the radio until they have a solid base of music you know is good under them!

Great Albums Of The 20th Century 01 - PULP, His'n'Hers (1994)

PULP – His’n’Hers

Blur vs. Oasis. The Battle Of Britpop. Working class tosspots with classic rock heritage square off against the art school Mockneys with the pop tunes and the experimental pretentions. But for me, neither is the winner. Both have some merits – but give me Pulp any day. In 1994 Pulp were already something like the old men of Britpop, having preceded the genre by many years and gradually evolved into something resembling the classic 90’s sound. Jarvis and co had just about hit their stride, after NME’s ‘Single of the Week’ accolade had recommended their previous release and their disco-pop-rock chimera was by now a fully-fledged creature of its own.

What better way to kick off their breakthrough album than with ‘Joyriders’, a beautifully ordinary statement of intent beginning ‘we like driving on a Saturday night’ and meandering through Cocker’s trademark meditations on the banal failures of working-class life, made poetry by his witty, eloquent lyrics. The song is suitably driving, with sections of tender atmospheric quietness being overtaken by bursts of riffage like boy racers tearing up suburbia.

Next up is single ‘Lipgloss’, a more melancholic song with an infectious synth loop that reappears at the end as an exuberant guitar solo. Despite the lack of passion in the character’s life, the passionate lament in the vocals is ear-grabbingly real.

‘Acrylic Afternoons’ is a bassy claustrophobic fumble on the sofa, with Jarvis mumbling and yowling about children who ‘wait for their mothers/to finish with lovers/and call them inside for their tea’. The verses are delivered in a fraught near-whisper, each ending with a rather unexpected whinny, in one case sobbing ‘thankyou, thankyou’ in broken breath in a verse about… tea, before the magnificent ‘YOW!’. Then he calls a series of children with dull English names in for tea, before dusting off his moaning falsetto. It really is quite excellent.

On ‘Have You Seen Her Lately’ Cocker pleads with an unnamed female friend not to go and see an uninspiring lover, saying ‘he’s already made such a mess of your life’ with a majestic keyboard outro. ‘Babies’ is classic Pulp. Who else could write a song about hiding in your girlfriend’s sister’s wardrobe to watch her go ‘with some kid called David from the garage up the road’ – and then fucking her? Its simple, jaunty guitar melody and synth squelches are balanced perfectly by a piercing violin overlay. And ‘I know you won’t believe it’s true/I only went with her cause she looked like you, my God!’? You don’t get charm like that in the 00’s.

‘She’s A Lady’ begins with ominous synth and violin and a throbbing bassline, before Jarvis starts chanting ‘m-m-m-mao-mao, m-m-m-mao-mao’ like a Sheffield shaman, and the icy, thumping drums of the sparse verse kick in. Then there’s something about ‘selling pictures of yourself to German businessmen’, before it bursts into dance-driven life as the narrator’s lover is ‘coming back to me!’. And for some reason, ‘the moon has gone down on the Sun’, in a chorus strangely reminiscent of ‘I Will Survive’. M-m-m-mao-mao-m-m-mao-mao. There that is again. All in all it’s multi-layered and rather splendid, and would probably go down very well in seedy discos everywhere.

Sweeping strings from Russell Senior herald the opening of ‘Happy Endings’, which is a sedate love ballad, crooned in that inimitable way. It builds over a gorgeously-textured backdrop of rippling electronics and slow waves of violin, before petering out elegantly with a soft reminder that the narrator’s beloved once said that she ‘liked happy endings’.

‘Do You Remember The First Time?’ continues in the same fashion, with a resigned verse and gently insistent melody, breaking into an assured, uplifting chorus, Jarvis wailing ‘I don’t care if you screw him, just as long as you save a piece for me’. The rhythm chugs along, ending with a drill of drums, over those backing instrumental washes again, and perky synths carry the song aloft to its conclusion.

Panting over a measured, constant bass, ‘Pink Glove’ kicks off, painting a shabbily elegant picture of a former lover who ‘got it right first time’. Jarvis laments her current, underwhelming lover (a common theme), before a stirring chorus of fuzzy guitars and soaring vocals which moan ‘I realise that you’ll never leave him, but every now and again in the evening…’ Who can argue with that?

The mellow atmospherics come out in full on ‘Someone Like The Moon’, which is the most underwhelming song on the album. Quiet drums bring in a soft, minor-key chorus, while electronic elements hum miserably away behind lyrics such as ‘the radio will only play love songs, so she cries’. It’s drawn-out and going for epic, but sadly this track isn’t wholly effective.

The album closes with the jauntier ‘David’s Last Summer’, in which Jarvis monologues like a more chilled-out Phil Daniels on ‘Parklife’ through a non-sensical summer ramble involving ‘talking to somebody polish’ and a groovy keyboard part augmented by some ‘ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo’s. Everything slows down on the chorus, a comment on the brevity of young love, which stretches the song out to nearly 7 minutes. The lyrics are, as ever, both grotty and heartbreakingly romantic, and this is a large part of the band’s appeal. Hopefully history will elevate them above the petty rivalry of the Britpop scene, and acknowledge this, ‘Different Class’ and ‘This Is Hardcore’ as their holy trinity, and rank them among the key albums of the 90s. Jarvis Cocker returns this year after a 5-year hiatus with his first solo album. I expect great things.

Weekend List

Top 5 Guitar Solos
1. Paranoid Android by Radiohead
2. Undone - The Sweater Song by Weezer
3. Why I'm Lonely by Harvey Danger
4. Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd
5. Nora by The Long Winters

One is a glorious spasm of a guitar solo
Two is a burst of nerdy teen delight in solo form
Three is the most heart melting guitar solo ever
Four is just really really good. Even if I do feel a bit cliché by listing it.
Five is the most frustrated, lonely trippy guitar solo ever.

Tales from Instant Messaging Volume 1

Richard: my computer is munitying against me
Miles: Mutiny! MUTINY!
Richard : so if i don't speak/post for a while that'd be while
Fergal says: Munity isn't a word
Richard: stuff isn't [working]. it is.
Miles: Heh. Ok
Richard: else what did they do on the bounty?
Miles: MUTINY
Fergal: Munity is what cows do when they gang on up on something
Miles: No that's mootiny

Cow puns, ladies and gentlemen. That's the level of high class discussion going on at Sugar and Noise HQ.

So onto stuff: Pop culture.

OK so yeh, everyone knows about pop culture. What I wanna know though, is when will Latin be a viable pop culture in the UK.

I mean think about it, emo really sucks because blah blah. But think how cool Latin would be! We would be able to walk around shouting "¡Arriba!" and playing trumpets and playing salsa music (salsa music is the best set of semi common musical principles after the blues(more on that later)). And instead of wearing black, we would wear bright coloured clothes and have cool moustaches. Admit, all the girls would look way better wearing big colourful dresses instead of crappy run down or fake run down black stuff. And guys, you wouldn't have to bother with all that hair straightening crap and mascara, you could have curly hair and have moustaches that even look a bit like banditos'!

And instead of the necessary emotion being depressed and having problems 'cos abusing your hormones as an excuse is cool, you'll be really happy, and you'll do loads of things with loads of other people other than moping; like instead of playing in a crap band with three poor guitarists, you'll be playing in a full Latin band shouting "¡Aye aye aye!" as loud as you can with the other 20 percussion players, and the trumpets and the bass and the piano will all make you feel great.

Seriously everyone, if you have to be a social stereotype, be Latin. Emos tell all your friends, then you won't have to do it alone (I'll admit that could be hard). And Maracas are cheap!

Guess what music I've been listening to...
Seriously Carlos Santana is a great guy, have you ever read the album sleeve notes from some of his stuff?
And you can't tell me the Voodoo Glow Skulls aren't having fun.


So yeh, keep all that in mind, and you know which blog to forward all your emo... friends... to.

(Note: I'm not that bothered with emos, it's just I really dig how great Latin would be, and emo is the biggest group it needs to replace at the moment- it is the Hot Topic of the times. *chuckle*)

Topical sound snippet: 4 bars of salsa I recorded with a bass and midi instruments.

I am Fergal

I enjoy Music, Social Adventures and Adventures of Discovery.

Music I like lots can be more easily realised by looking at this link.
I guess the stuff I like the most are:
Grandaddy
Feeder
Jamiroquai
Midnight Oil
as stuff I like listening to most, but I wouldn't be able to listen to just them.

I'm kid age. I go to school. I play guitars.

Introducing me:

Richard O'Brien was born in Peterborough in 1990, and has been trying to escape ever since. He is currently still trying to get an education, and resides in a Lincolnshire village with his parents and his labradors with nautical names. He likes to act, listen to music, and write songs that will never be sung.

Top 5 bands:
1) Manic Street Preachers
2) The Libertines
3) Pulp
4) British Sea Power
5) The Clash

Welcome to Me

Good evening one and all. I am Miles. This here blog was my idea. I've had a few of my own but I thought that if I was part of a team I might work better. So here we are (unintentional Bloc Party references a-go-go)

And now, a list. Expect lots of lists from me. I like lists. Blame Nick Hornby.

Top Three Albums Miles Is Looking Forward To Right Now
1. Putting the Days to Bed by The Long Winters (more on them soon)
2. Radiohead's Next Album (Due 2007 now apparently. Still, worth waiting for)
3. Ganging Up on the Sun by Guster (Again, expect a post)

You notice how two of these are out this month and one is not out till next year? This tells us something important about my character but I'm not sure what.

Favourite Movie Quote: "You're gonna need a bigger boat"

And in the words of Ben Folds, sham on!

Welcome

I shall introduce myself in a moment, but first - Welcome to Sugar and Noise.

This is a blog made by pop culture, we are simply its tools. Pop culture never sharpens its tools. Pop culture doesn't make good chairs. We are blunt.

We shall write about whatever we wish, but expect it to center around music and, well, popular culture. And now, meet the team..