Hey kids! A song from album number two has leaked. NOW. It is called I Am Not Dead (Yeah!). Maybe you have seen us do it live. The version that has leaked is not the final version. The final version will have a very special guest singing the chorus. Maybe you can guess who. maybe not.

ANYWAY!

The song has turned up on Dr David “Lorry” Laurie of Something In Construction’s new mix CD / label sampler, Building With Strings. Writes David:

“I am doing a label sampler slash compilation album.
The promos are going out next week.
but in the meantime (my fave UK website) The Line Of Best Fit is hosting it as a FREE download.
Here
http://thelineofbestfit.com/2008/04/04/building-with-strings/
19 tunes from LoneyDear, Emmy The Great, Young Husband, Damn Arms vs Midnight Juggernauts, Akira The Don, Sambassadeur, Depreciation Guild and a fat bunch of brand new things.
It is, if I say so myself, very good and I kinda made an effort to make it flow like a reallykickass mixtape, rather than just a bunch of songs shuffled onto a CD.
Hope you like it.”

— Friday, April 4th, 2008

Wow. Anyone heard this new Girls Aloud joint? It’s called Hoxton Heroes and it is a straight up DISS of, like, well, a bunch of indie bands. Who’d a thunk it?

The song contains such lyrical gems as “You said you played at Reading/ Then you chart at fifty-seven” and “You’re off your face like you’re number one/ How many tracks have you sold? Mmmmm, none!”

I think its pretty great. Pixel just came round and he thinks its great too. Check out the video AND the lyrics after the jump.

You took some acid back in ’99
You said it blew your mind
And it helped you write rhymes

So you bought a trilby and a cheap guitar
You thought you’d be a star
It didn’t get you that far

I don’t know your name
You’re just another band with a different game
And you’re all the same
You said you played at Reading
Then you chart at fifty-seven

I don’t know your name
You’re just another band with a different game
And you’re all the same
You said you played at Reading
Then you chart at fifty-seven, oh

You’re off your face like you’re number one
How many tracks have you sold? Mmmmm, none!
Walk round the place like you’re number one
So why don’t you write a tune that we can hum?

Just cos your dad knew the Rolling Stones
You’ve got the Primrose set in your cell phone
Don’t kid yourself, you’re an indie clone
We’ve seen it before, get a sound of your own

Just cos your dad knew the Rolling Stones
You’ve got the Primrose set in your cell phone
Don’t kid yourself but you’re indie phones
We’ve heard it before, get a sound of your own

You only follow Sinatra
Cos you, you couldn’t get into Rada
So let’s try a little bit harder
Cos you need more than jeans and a parka

You only follow Sinatra
Cos you, you couldn’t get into Rada
So let’s try a little bit harder
Cos you need more than jeans and a parka

Just cos your dad knew the Rolling Stones
You’ve got the Primrose set in your cell phone
Don’t kid yourself, you’re an indie clone
We’ve seen it before, get a sound of your own

Just cos your dad knew the Rolling Stones
You’ve got the Primrose set in your cell phone
Don’t kid yourself but you’re indie phones
We’ve heard it before, get a sound of your own

You could make history
If you just stayed off the whiskey
And yeah, you might just look like a rockstar
But how much soul did it cost ya, cost ya?

You could make history
If you just stayed off the whiskey
And yeah, you might just look like a rockstar
But how much soul did it cost ya, cost ya?

— Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

My friend and yours, Miss Mary Turner has asked me to ask YOU for help in deciding what song to sing at her Pop Idol-styled audition this weekend.

The audition is for “a pop project”. Mary has to sing a song acapella.

Tag line, says Mary: “Cool, Sassy, Poppy”.

“It can’t be Girls Aloud or anything, singing a capella so need a song with a melody, not one where when production and harmonies are taken away it’s dull, could be a fast tune slowed down ie ‘Hey Ya’ Outkast. Preferably a fairly familiar tune yet original ie Leonard Cohen ‘Bird on the Wire’ [sic] and needs to have some range but not too much as with nerves don’t want to be fretting about high notes. Audition on Sat so got to be easy to learn if i don’t already know it. Thinking there must be some good forgotten Britpop tunes, not ‘Something Chnaged’ as already sung that.”

You can listen to Mary’s voice to see what would suit her here.

“Ta,” says mary, “:)”

— Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

“When Thor shows up in a comic, all the other characters should go “OH FUCK IT’S THOR RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES HE’S A VIKING WAR GOD WITH A FUCKING MAGIC HAMMER” and if they don’t then that writer and artist FAIL.”
Alltooflat.com

Funny because it is true. Funny too, the work of Richard Thompson – the cartoonist, not the singer. i like him because he draws in a scratchy style reminiscent of a Ralph Steadman or a Quentin Blake (whom, as I child, I scorned, imagining that I could draw better than him any day, oh the naivety of youth). His blog is an interesting place, and very charming. That picture of George Bush up there is seven years old, and is quite heartbreaking in its gentleness. Who knew what horrors would come? Well, a bunch of people, but never mind that right now.

Jeff Wells is at it again. He is swiftly becoming one of my favorite writers, and while he seems to only post once or twice a month nowadays, everything he touches turns to gold, so it is fine.

The great assassinations of the Sixties were decapitation strikes, never intended to kill the host or to extinguish hope. It’s only the hopeless who are dangerous. Hope must be encouraged, because you don’t need to do anything to have it, and it keeps the prey from becoming wise to its own nature and seeking extraction from the cycle. Hope makes it possible to write and believe such things as “Al Gore will save the planet but Barack Obama will save this country.” Hope that the system works, even if it is just a digestive system.

Say word!

Elsewhere on the interwebs, some of you will be pleased to know that Stephen Fry has started doing podcasts. Cheers Colin for the heads up.

— Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

I am still leaking flourecent boogers, but I have managed to go outside a little. It was Wade’s birthday on Sunday, and I lasted till 12:30! And ate some beef!

Pretty cool.

Last night BJ and I went to an event thrown by my old friend Victor Wynd, at which Goodbye To Berlin author Christopher Isherwood‘s biographer, the enviably named Peter Parker spoke about the life and times of his prey. The man spoke for a good hour, but the main lesson of the evening seemed to be about how much Isherwood (and his biographer) enjoyed buggering young (and preferably disadvantaged) boys, and how amusing the audience thought that was.

Oh to be of “good stock”! With money no longer a concern, the human is free to pursue artistic interests and buggery to his heart’s desire.

Yes. BJ somehow lost his wallet on the way out. Well, the wallet turned up after some searching, but minus the wad of money he’d taken out that was to last him the whole coming month. BJ is expecting a baby soon (well, his wife is), so every penny is even more important than it used to be. A very sad thing to see. Hopefully, today, my friend has awoken in this glorious sunshine and thought of all manner of ways to enjoy the month without the aid of money (or buggery).

Good news! My T shirt people finally availed themselves with new screens, after weeks of really rather bungling fuckery, and I am promised T Shirts will “be with you Wednesday”. By “you” they mean “me”, so I shall set the day aside to bag and post your clothing.

Have I shrieked at you about these weaponised insects they’re making at The Pentagon yet?

I quote:

For the past 50 years, work by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — the Pentagon’s blue skies research outfit — has led to some of the most lethal weaponry in the U.S. arsenal: from Hellfire-missile-equipped Predator drones and stealth fighters and bombers to Tomahawk cruise missiles and Javelin portable “fire and forget” guided missiles. For the last several years, DARPA has funneled significant sums of money into a very different kind of guided missile project, its Hybrid Insect MEMS (HI-MEMS) program. This project is, according to DARPA, “aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems [MEMS] inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis.” Put simply, the creation of cyborg insects: part bug, part bot.

Right now, researchers are already growing insects with electronics inside them. They’re creating cyborg moths and flying beetles that can be remotely controlled. One day, the U.S. military may field squadrons of winged insect/machine hybrids with on-board audio, video or chemical sensors. These cyborg insects could conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions on distant battlefields, in far-off caves, or maybe even in cities closer to home, and transmit detailed data back to their handlers at U.S. military bases.

OK. So. Imagine if, say Iran were developing fuckin’ cyborg fuckin’ wasps. The uproar! Fucking I’d say that was reason enough to nuke them! Jesus! And here’s Uncle Sam playing Dr Frankenstein with buggiewugs, and no one seems even mildly perturbed. Well I am seriously perturbed! Real wasps are bad enough, let alone remote controlled evil US Army Wasps with their stingers dipped in AIDS and mounted with fuckin’ cameras. Christ On A Stick! There isn’t even any kind of pretend medical advantage in this research! It is purely for the purpose of MURKING and SNEAKING and MORE MURKING!

Pretty, PRETTY lame.

— Tuesday, April 1st, 2008