Communications

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Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd

I’m expecting some complaints after this communication and album review. First let me give you my personal story of “Dark Side of the Moon”.

I was about 14 and was visiting Lynda, my best friend’s Aunt. First she showed us the video to “Thriller” which was very exciting and then she told us to listen to a particular album. It was, obviously (?), “Dark Side of the Moon”. I can remember the gatefold album and looking at the cover. I don’t really remember listening to the music much but I seem to remember the catchy riff of money. The music had a lot of weird stuff going on.

Years later I remember describing Pink Floyd as “dull monotonous shit”. I think, overall, this is a statement I will stand by. “Dark Side of the Moon” I will accept is a classic and parts of it send shivers down my spine. That does not mean that I have to like everything by that band and it certainly doesn’t mean I have to accept them as geniuses.

BTW I probably will accept Pink Floyd as genius. Their music really does affect some people a lot. A lot more than I would consider suitable but they love. It just doesn’t bother me so much. Sorry about that. I think I can recognise the good but also you have to accept it does nothing for me. It’s a bit like religion. I understand the attraction to religion and its good points but for me it’s all rather offensive.

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Dark Roots Of Earth – Testament

I bought this album because I was going to see Testament play at KoKo in London. I know “Practice What You Preach” from my days at school and I thought I needed to know a few more songs and so I got their latest album.

Old Dog  applies to this album, but I would say it definitely works well. There’s a maturity in the song writing and it is also well produced. The anger is still there but reduced slightly from those heady days of teenage testosterone. They played a few songs live and they sounded good. There’s something funny about middle-aged rockers trying to maintain the anger at the establishment, but also becoming part of the machine they hated.

It’s worth a listen.

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D – HexRx

HexRx make dirty hellectro music. That’s quite curious because hellectro is rather dirty in itself. HexRx take many samples from horror films and then build “tunes” around them. I can listen for about an album at a time and then it’s time for something else.

I like it, I just can’t take too much. Listening is an experience, which is a bit of a theme with this album.

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Now You See Me

I went to see this film to kill a few hours one evening. I’ve just signed up for unlimited films with Cineworld and so I aim to go at least once a week from now on.

This film was a slight disappointment. The premise was really good but the tricks were just too fanciful. I’ve seen some big stage magic before but linking that in with real criminal activity just pushes it beyond the acceptable. This was one of those films where everything seems to have been planned including how everyone will react. I don’t think this is possible and I don’t like it in films. The super-criminal is able to predict exactly how everyone will make their next move and so can perform wondrous tricks and activities. BS. Life just doesn’t work like that. Ultimately people are a little unpredictable and so I don’t like these sorts of films.

Look, it killed a couple of hours and I spent most of the time trying to recognise the Hulk in the film. I’m rubbish at recognising films and so have to rely on IMDB (or the Cardiff Movie Database as I first new it!).

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World’s End

Went to see this “British” film in Croydon with A Smith. Sometimes I go to the cinema with A Gunn, so you make your choice about names.

Had a nice curry before the film and some good Indian lager. I don’t think this affected my judgement as Smith thought the same as me.

The film had some nice touches and its funny parts were quite funny but it wasn’t great. “Alright” was just about as far as I could stretch. The lead character was annoying and I just didn’t care much about him. He could have been much more interesting and sympathetic and the film would have been better.

I think they tried to do too much with the film. They’ve done cop films and zombie films and this attempt at sci-fi/horror didn’t really work. The “aliens” could have been much creepier and the gang should have discovered these things a little slower in the film.

It was alright.

The town where it was filmed looked very pretty. Damn, that’s quite a middle-aged thing to say!

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Red2

Saw Red2 this morning at Cineworld in Rochester. It killed a few hours after my run. It also was very nearly not Red2 that I watched. I sat through adverts and trailers only for the wrong film to start. We all left the screen and the management said they’d put on the correct film.

Did have to sit through more adverts and trailers though which was a bit shit.

The film itself is funny in a few places and full of crazy action, but overall enjoyable. It’s nice to see old stars doing the action thing. I particularly loved Helen Mirren shooting cops and general up-to-no-goods from a Lotus while it was spinning along the road. Also, the pick-up of Bruce Willis into an Aston (?) driven by Zeta-Jones was excellent and laughable. Great fun. The plot was pretty poor and very “early Bond” but then they made loads of money.

Overall, worth a watch. Not as good as the first.

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D.O.A. – Throbbing Gristle

The full title of this album is:

D.O.A. The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle

This is seminal. When you take the members of Throbbing Gristle and look into their backgrounds and previous work you start to understand where they were coming from. In 1976 COUM Transmissions were doing this sort of crazy stuff. And modern day artists like to think that they are pushing the boundaries. I guess they are, but I can’t help thinking that it’s all been done before.

So, Throbbing Gristle, they made “music” to challenge pre-conceptions and to see how far they could take it. You might not like listening to it, but your life will be enriched for doing so (unlike a 1D album). You have to remember when this was made. 1978. The technology they were using was ground-breaking and their sound was something special. To understand the origins of modern industrial music you HAVE to include TG.

Favourite tracks include:

  • I.B.M.
  • Hit By A Rock
  • Dead On Arrival
  • Hamburger Lady (one of the most disturbing songs I have ever heard)
  • AB/7A
  • Blood On The Floor

Listen, appreciate, take some paracetamol (you’ll need it).

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Pacific Rim

The trailer for this made me worried. It looked pretty poor but it was a hot day and a few hours in an air-conditioned cinema seemed to make sense.
Overall I really enjoyed this film. Yes, it was full of cliché and at times a poor script but overall it’s an excellent example of a crappy kinda action film. It’s a bit like the Iron Man movies but just with larger robots (or whatever you want to call them). It’s also amusing to think that atomic bombs are, once again, the saviour of man-kind. Don’t we have any other ideas for stopping portals from other worlds? We should have some seriously nerdy ideas and make it a “clever” solution to the portal rather than one of brute force, but I guess the general population couldn’t cope with that.
This was a good film in its genre. Worth watching. And, remember to stay through the credits as there’s a lovely little coda that made me laugh out loud in an empty cinema.

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Antithesis – The Ivy

Went to see a few bands at The Ivy in Sheerness last night. I was most interested in the band called:

The Antithesis

I’ve seen this band a number of times and really enjoy their music. I thought they were good. Also saw Where’s Billy? who were ok. It was an enjoyable evening. Thanks Dave.

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Bridge

Took this picture while waiting to go into the cinema. I like bridges. When you think about the things we can do as the human race when we put our minds to it, it’s remarkable. We can travel with ease and talk to practically anyone in the world via a small device we can carry. On the negative side we don’t yet have the political ambition to stave off anthropogenic climate change, or even to make sure the end result is the least worst possible outcome because we really are changing our planet and beyond recognition.

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