School disco nostalgia

Christmas is always a nostalgic time. There's something about hearing The Pogues on the radio and seeing George Michael frolicking in the snow still trying desperately to convince us all that he's straight that never fails to get me reminiscing about years gone by. I only have to smell a Christmas tree and I'm transported back to my 8 year old self, lying excitedly in bed listening out for the sound of sleigh bells. Maybe it was this feeling of reflectiveness that got me and Hol trawling our childhood memories for long forgotten but ever familiar pop tunes that would have undoubtedly been heard at school discos across the nation around the turn of the last decade. I'm so glad these songs have come back into my life.

The ultimate nostalgia playlist:

Moony-Dove

Wamdue Project- King of My Castle

Armand Van Helden- You Don't Know Me

3LW- No More (Baby I'm A Do Right)

Janet Jackson & Beenie Man- Feel It Boy

Blue Boy- Remember Me

SWV- Human Nature

Nizlopi- JCB Song

Bedouin Soundclash- When The Night Feels My Song

Tweet Feat. Missy Elliot- Oops (Oh My)

Mary Mary- Shackles

Shanks & Bigfoot- Sweet Like Chocolate

City High- What Would You Do?

Spin Doctors- Two Princes

Sweet Female Attitude- I'll Bring You Flowers

Santogold

Benny Blanco's remix of 'I'm a Lady' by Santogold is irresistibly cool and completely addictive. The only downside is that it's only 1 minute 52. Get ready to rinse the replay button.

Puss In Boots

Cats are not just adorable pets. Felines, unlike most housebroken critters, don’t rely on humans for a damn thing. Cats also look exceptionally good in clothing.

So obviously, it's good to see United Bamboo designer duo Miho Aoki and Thuy Pham are also fans of this bizarre trend. For the second year in a row they’ve produced cat-sized versions of their upcoming Spring/Summer collection for a new calendar photographed by Noah Sheldon. Seeing how fast these $50 calenders have flown off the shelves, it’s only a matter of time before matching master and pet ensembles start appearing in store windows on 5th Ave.

The Alpha Snail

The Alpha Snail. Yesssssss.... http://www.myspace.com/thealphasnail

Movember Mixtaaape

Any of the following will be certain to get you into your disco shoes on a cold Movember night. Brrrrrrrrr....

Comanche- Most Ancient

Tensnake- Coma Cat (Round Table Knights Remix)

Metronomy- Thing for Me (Breakbot Remix)

Santigold- I'm a Lady (Benny Blanco Remix)

Toro y Moi- Low Shoulder

Treasure Fingers- Lift Me (Gabriell Remix)

Kelpe- Chocolate Money (Huess Remix)

Cubiq- Hushed Up (Basic Human Nature)

The Alpha Snail- Tiny Pants

My Dry Wet Mess- Etcetera

Vil-N-X- Give You Luv Show You Luv (Deep Love Mix)

Aloe Blacc- I Need A Dollar (Oliver $ Edit)

Palindrome o' the Day

Go hang a salami! I'm a lasagna hog!

T.V Mashups

There's been some great programs on T.V lately and many of my evenings are spent on my sofa getting far too involved with occasionally trashy but always entertaining programs like The Apprentice, Masterchef and, of course, The X Factor. Arguably more enjoyable however are the spin off, spoof youtube clips that have resulted in these show's popularity. These are a couple that reduce me to hysterically tearful laughter every time. But maybe that's just me...

Benjamin Francis Leftwich

So I just listened to this 8 times in a row. It's not a song that's going to change the world, but it sure did brighten up my Tuesday morning.

Palindrome o' the Day

Doc note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

Fucking Lexmark Shit

Oooooh, cats!!!

she's dirty to the core but she aint no whore. she got it all...

Who would have thought that someone who worked in Domino's could be such a huge rude boy? Adam O'Brian, Mel and I salute you.... 'she's dirty to the core but she aint no whore'... that lyric changed my life. I'd buy a stuffed crust off you any day.

Toro y Moi

Toro y Moi. Heard it for the first time and thought.... warped sleaze, but excellent sleaze. His album 'Causers of This' is a pretty eclectic one, transcending genre but bringing to mind a kind of anaesthetised Passion Pit or a pilled up Sigur Ros. If you can imagine that. But Toro Y Moi needs no comparison and is more than accomplished enough to speak for itself. He's also done a pretty cool cover of Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature' too. If you like psychedelic, synthy electro-pop as much as I do give him a listen.... a kind of uncatagorisable singer/producer from South Carolina...

*Later note- this album is even better than I first thought*

Hail to the Swedes

JJ- CEO Birthday

Swedish music is so good. This cover of Jeremih's 'Birthday Sex' by JJ is yet another example of that. JJ come on a long list of numerous other Swedish bands and artists who keep releasing amazing pop/dance music. These include Miike Snow, Lykke Li, Little Dragon, Dirty Projectors, The Knife, among others... who could forget...ABBA! Check it ooot!

Palindrome o' the Day

Go deliver a dare, vile dog!

Yum!

I wish I could have got a better picture of this but this was the best I could do with my shitty camera phone. You can just about make out the culinary delights on offer at a restaurant me and my friend Phebs went to in Essouira in Marocco last week... another classic translation fail. 'Yum!' I exclaimed upon seeing this, 'lets indulge in some sea-bears, maybe with a side order of moulds just for jokes.' Sea-bears? What does this even mean? Sea Bass maybe? I've always been baffled and amused by foreign menus like this and love attempting to fathom how the ingredients of each dish got so horribly lost in translation. This one's actually quite tame.. these are a few others I've seen before which were completely ridiculous and impossible to decipher...

'Spaghetti with with fishes been just born'- This was on a menu in Sicily. Note the repetition ofthe word 'with.'

'The village bean is paid'- what the fuck?

'Tissue'- Tissue? Right on the menu between chicken noodle soup and egg fried rice. How did this happen?

'bee puke'-what could this possibly be?

These three were all on menus in various places in south east asia.... the menus there are the maddest and most funny... for example this...

Palindrome o' the Day

Straw? No, too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts.

Tunes For Summer

It hasn't exactly been a glorious summer of solid sunshine and cloudless skies, but let's face it, this is England and it's been all right. The weather has been perfectly acceptable for beer and barbecues in the garden, and no barbecue is complete, of course, without a summer playlist.... And as far as summer playlists go, this one's pretty sweeet!

Kotchy- Sing What You Want (Rusko's Skweee Remix)

Breakbot- Baby I'm Yours

Flight Facilities- Crave You (Feat. Giselle)

Wax Tailor- Que Sera

Local Natives- Wide Eyes (Teen Daze Remix)

Barretso- Midnight Walk

DJ Fresh- Gold Dust

M.I.A- Boyz (Twelves Remix)

Gorillaz- Empire Ants (Feat. Little Dragon)

Dragonette- Easy (Fabian Remix)

Caravan Palace- Je M'amuse

The Chemical Brothers- Another World

Cagedbaby- Forced (Foamo Remix)

Pnau- Baby (Breakbot Remix)

Broken Bells- The High Road

Alice

I haven't watched this for a while, but I still love it. Pogo's done some really cool stuff which you can watch/listen to on youtube. This is the best one...

Palindrome o' the Day

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo

I walked into the room dripping in gold...

Flight Facilities...

Crave You Feat. Giselle by Flight Facilities... I can't stop listening to this song. It was made for summer...

Follow this link to hear it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXcEdIZQYI

You'll probably get a better sound quality on Hype Machine though. Enjoy!

Stevie

This is my new kitten. He's unbelievably sweet! His name's Stevie but I call him Cat Stevens or Paws McGee. I realise that it must seem like this blog is entirely dedicated to cats, which it was never meant to be. It's just a passing obsession...

Palindrome o' the Day

Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak

Engrish

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Combining my love of fancy dress and cats...

For some reason animal anthropomorphism really makes me laugh, and that includes dressing up animals (especially cats) in fancy dress. I used to put my Daschund Otto in a little purple dress. My ma said it was 'cruel and undignified.' I thought it was jokes. Check out these fancy felines, they're so sweet...

Mildly Impressive

I've waited a long time to be able to throw something at a Hoosier. At the weekend I finally got the chance. They headlined a wee Devon festival called Chagstock and bored us all with their sappy, shit, trite, Electric Light Orchestra-esque songs for a couple of hours. Never cringed so much in my life. They're definitely up at the top if my most hated list, along with The Feeling, Scouting for Girls and James Blunt, who all fill me with rage whenever their songs pipe up on the radio. Anyway after they'd done their thing, me and a few mates somehow ended up in the VIP tent, hanging with the stars (not). We hung around for a while stealing food and booze from the fridge, but the after-party was, all in all, pretty dull. 'Why not liven things up?' I drunkenly thought to myself. Years worth of Hoosier-related rage welled up inside me as I threw a pink wooden flamingo's head straight at the lead singer. I missed unfortunately, but the look of horror on his face was more than satisfying. My friend Harri only added insult to injury by loudly proclaiming to the drummer, 'I thought you were going to be shit, but I guess I was mildly impressed.' YES HARRI! I do feel a bit bad. To be fair they all seemed like really nice people, but me and my Hoosier-hating friends weren't going to let an opportunity like this pass us by.

Other than 'The Hoose' as we now affectionately call them, Chagstock was brilliant. It's just a shame that Seth Lakeman didn't headline because he was amazing.

Bring on next year... maybe we'll get Scouting for Girls :-)

Cats and wigs

These cats are jokes. I love the one at 3:27, makes me weep everytime.

Palindrome o' the Day

Do geese see God?

Julie, I'm sorry

When I was at school we had a science teacher called Mrs. Woolley. She was massive, with a broad Yorkshire accent and an outcrop of grey brillo pad-like fuzz on the top of her head. We used to mercilessly rip the piss out of her every day, in a way that only a group of 13 year olds knows how to do. We used to double over with teary laughter every time she screamed 'um, year 7!' in her trademark northern squawk and gleefully giggle behind our text books every time she waddled out of the science store cupboard desperately scoffing down the peanuts we were supposed to be using for our energy experiment. We loved her though. She used to stick her fingers in the bunsen burner flame to demonstrate how human flesh, when cooked, smelled like pork and throw stuff into the fire (often her own hair) to make small explosions which would make us all go 'aaaaah.' Recently I found out that Mrs. Woolley is really ill with cancer and I feel horrible for the endless hours we spent mocking her. It's funny how something that seemed so innocent and harmless at the time can come back to guilt-trip you. Get well soon Mrs. Woolley and thank you for being so mad and completely unforgettable...

I love seeing animals being made to do human activities... like cats playing the piano and little dogs driving cars. This is my dog Otto doing a cheeky reversing manoeuvre. He died over a year ago (on the same day as Michael Jackson in fact) and I still miss him so much. He was the kind of dog that constantly shat all over the house and pissed on the tv guide, which was so infuriating but, fortunately for him, he had the puppy dog look down to a tee. Whenever Ots did the naughty, I never had the heart to berate him. He always had this look of guilty terror in his eyes that was so adorable I just had to pick him up, give him a cuddle and a bonio and chuck him out into the garden.

We all miss you so much Otto, and may you rest in peace. Shamon!

death by snow patrol

Until recently I had started totally losing faith in new bands. Good ones seemed so few and far between that I started listening almost exclusively to dance music in its various shapes and forms. There's been the odd half decent album out in the last couple of years that I've really got into... Arcade Fire's first two albums were amazing and I also liked a couple of other less known records like The Low Anthem's Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and Chunk of Change by Passion Pit... but producers like Parov Stelar, Joy Orbison, Foamo, Burial, Fake Blood, Switch and Diplo's brainchild Major Lazer and a million others have generally made the dance music scene a much more appealing place in recent years. Not to mention totally changing the contents of my itunes library. Despite this surge of brilliant DJs and producers though, I've really missed listening to the type of music I grew up to... bands like Blur and The Smiths and Radiohead who had guitars and lyrics and stuff. Since the early noughties, I've become increasingly frustrated by the overwhelming shiteness of new bands, which by some sick miracle have become massive household names thanks to dooshbags like Jo Wiley and the corporate clones over at Q Magazine. I'm talking about the middle-of-the-road, mindless drivel of Snow Patrol (eugh), Scouting for fucking Girls (bleugghhhh), the bloody Hoosiers and a kind of Pandora's Box of lame ass, skinny-jean-wearing bands which all come under the horrible generic title of (dare I say it) 'Indie.' SHUT UP! There will always be shit music around, but at least now there's a few tiny rays of light which permeate this horrible little radio 1 blanket of rubbish... Finally, there's something to get a little bit excited about... Bands like Mumford and Sons, Miike Snow, Bombay Bicycle Club and The Temper Trap are finally getting some interesting, uplifting and genuinely good 'guitar' music back onto our airwaves. And FINALLY after years of releasing brilliant but scarcely known albums, Parisian band Phoenix are getting the acclaim they deserve. There are a few other new bands which deserve a bit more recognition too, like L.A's Local Natives, whose debut album Gorilla Manor is an absolute corker. (Below is a clip of their cover of Talking Heads' Warning sign, which is great in a Fleet Foxes/Arcade Fireish kind of way).

For the first time in ages I don't find myself desperately scrabbling around for good new songs to listen to. It's a good feeling.

Hats and Wigs

Why Hats and Wigs? Just because I really like them and a have loads hanging from my wall. After indulging in several years worth of parties, gatherings, festivals and other excuses for general debauchery, I've come to the conclusion that a party's always more fun when you're wearing a hat (or a wig), or, even better, in full on fancy dress. In fact, in my little room in Birmingham (which for whatever reason seems to have become a regular party destination for a collective of pleasure-seeking youths, drunken 'Articulate' enthusiasts, revellers and general wastemen) nobody's allowed in anymore if they're not wearing some sort of trilby, fedora, afro or beret. It's just become a kind of thing.

Anyway, this blog's not even about hats or wigs, but I was probably wearing one as the inspiration for each of my posts swirled around in my bowler-hatted head.