I’m not sure when I got this album. I’m not a massive Prince fan but I can definitely see that the guy was a genius. I mostly remember the albums: Diamonds and Pearls, Batman and Love Symbol. This one is a classic, I know that much, but I’ve just not really listened to it along with Love Sexy. I do feel slightly ashamed that I don’t know this album well. When Doves Cry and Purple Rain I am aware of and would recognise. Oh well. Such an interesting communication for number 1600 [the address of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue].
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
It had to happen at some point. When a new Star Wars film is released I get the jitters and need to go, no matter how cool I think I am going to take it and wait. An opportunity came around pretty quick to see this one, so I took that chance and went yesterday to see the last of the Skywalker films [Pom and others who care, don’t read this until after you’ve seen the film].
I say a 4 o’clock-ish showing of the film as we finished work a little earlier than normal. The tide on this stretch of the Medway was about halfway but I don’t know whether it was ebbing or flowing. I could see half of the tidal flats reflecting the street lights from the opposite shore and the reflections broke up where the small waves lapped at the shore.
After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and then automatically tweeted the result. There is a whole communication covering how the rating system works and it is located here back in Feb 2014. This pretty much explains how I score certain films and what my criteria are. If you don’t like my score then perhaps read on, to see why I rated it as such.
I rated Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/wl1EWrUd8C
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 19, 2019
I guess it’s time to explain why I rated this a 6/10. Apart from the fact that I probably won’t bother to watch it again.
THERE ARE POSSIBLY SPOILERS AHEAD. I haven’t written this yet so I don’t know, but it’s likely.
I enjoyed this film. I pretty much came out and thought to myself “It was OK”. That’s all. It was just OK. Nothing special about it. Much like when using the force I have learnt to let go of my feelings for this franchise.
Look, there were massive planet scapes, space battles, people dying, it all looked remarkably gorgeous. The planets were detailed although the production designers don’t seem to realise that planets can have all forms of terrain and weather, it’s how planets work but different planets are distinguished by their climate and flora. Just look at our [slowly burning] planet, we have all forms of weather and land type. Planets can be a mixture.
There were plenty of times when if I thought too much about what was going on I would be a little “What?”, how does that work, but, again, I’ve learnt to let go.
There is one thing I will say that annoyed me. Right at the end when all the rebellious little people turn up to help out they drop out of light speed in the cloud and I thought the whole point of that planet was to hide the fleet and you had to have the route fully mapped to be able to get into the secret area.
Richard E Grant was great.
Maybe my reaction to this film is more to do with where I am emotionally. It’s been a tough few months for me and I’m kinda divorced from a lot of feelings at the moment. Star Wars hasn’t affected me much. Even seeing the Emperor back didn’t do much for me. Who knows?
Then, there’re the general themes involved with this film. Much like a lot of our films and too much of the Disney stuff this film manages to further the ideas of family dynasty, family honour and christian dealings with sin. I’ll expand.
Too much of our society is obsessed with ideas of you being more than just you. It’s about the idea that you are who you were born to. Your history and family in the past is important. It matters if your father was Mr Boss, it matters which school you went to, it matters what your grandfather did. Why else do you think we have that shitty programme called “Who Do You Think You Are?”. It’s a BBC show about people’s family trees and what their ancestors did. It reinforces the notion that you are more than just you, you are also your family history. You have legitimacy because of what people who died before you were born did. I guess this is to be expected in a constitutional monarchy where our literal head of state depends on who their father is. This bullshit is reinforced by almost every aspect of our society and I fucking hate it. This film furthers those ideas.
Some powerful people seem to care about honour. Which i think is probably defined as caring about what others think of you. Currently it seems that a lot of our “leaders” don’t care about honour. They don’t care about what others think of them because they can get away with everything they say. If you think that’s extreme then be aware that the UK just voted for a known liar and racist to be its prime minister. People are selfish cunts.
Finally, because expanding my thoughts is hard work and I’m not the best writer in the world, the Star Wars films justify the best of christian values by allowing people to ask for forgiveness just before they die and allowing them to enter heaven. Vader atoned [?] for his sins by killing the Emperor [not very well as it turns out] and he gets reimagined as a jedi ghost. In this film, Kylo turns good right at the last minute and gets redeemed. What a crock of shit. It’s like Blair getting baptised after causing an illegal war. Such a bullshit view of the world but one that is enforced in our common culture.
These films perpetuate and reinforce these ideas of society and being born into your position in that society. They help youngsters learn that they must accept their place. There is no meritocracy. Only hereditary privilege.
Addendum [040120]: Saw this film again yesterday with a friend and I think it impressed me even less. Something Phil Plait complained about the Star Trek movie [reboot] was that it suffered from “too much stuff in it”, I agree with these comments about this latest SW film, which has JJ involved.
Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed & The Way To Suck Eggs – Ministry
This album is really called ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ but Psalm 69 is much easier.
Holy Maloly. This album is a biggie. When you discover a new sound you want to keep buying and listening to it, get the most out of it. This was probably my first encounter with industrial metal.
JESUS BUILT MY HOTROD
Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true, Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil, Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet. All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world, so there was only one thing that I could do: Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long.
If Hotrod doesn’t get you rocking then there’s something wrong with you. You listen to that first because of the speed and the power and then you settle into the other songs and they hit you, slowly at first. It’s like a punch that starts a mile away and comes at you slowly over hours.
N.W.O. – Bloody amazing. The extended edition is better with about a minute of feedback before the main riff blasts in.
Just One Fix – I’ve got the extended edition of this and I just love the structure of the song. This is a nightmare song about drugs [probably].
TV II – Shouty and powerful.
Hero – Manic riffs and beats to bang your head.
Jesus Built My Hotrod – genius.
Scare Crow – a slow beat song to wake up the neighbours and bounce to.
Psalm 69 – Praise Jesus. An Epic.
Corrosion – Crazy sounds and drums, unique.
Grace – It’s noise, man.
This whole album is what happens when you have musical geniuses out of their heads on drugs and arguing. It’s great. Bloody marvellous.
Jumanji: The Next Level
Drove the short distance to Rochester cinema earlier today to see the second (third) Jumanji film. I really enjoyed the first one and reviewed it in this communication. I’ve since watched the first (second) on TV and so this was a no brainer.
On the way to the cinema I generally try and keep track of what the tide is doing. The river Medway is alongside the cinema and it is the tidal part of the river, being downstream from Allington Lock. The tide was high and the river was looking pretty dirty from all the rain that has hit the county over the last week. There was quite a breeze too which means there were plenty of little waves. Also, on the river, there was a ship carrying a boat [or however you choose to define ships and boats].
This brings me onto what I thought about the film. I rated it on IMDB and there’s a communication here dealing with the rating system. I then share the result on Twitter:
I rated Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) 8/10 #IMDb https://t.co/JwNxuWoO3L
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 14, 2019
This is simple. I enjoyed this film and thought it funny. It was good fun and looked great. A lovely story, perhaps very cliched, and some decent slapstick. It was all great.
Pretty Hate Machine – Nine Inch Nails
I bought this on CD thinking I would listen to it lots because I really like NIN. I haven’t listened to it.
Powertrippin’ – Almighty
There was a period of time when The Almighty were the best british metal band out there. I thought they were great. I saw them three times. The best was probably when they supported Megadeth at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. Also I saw them when they supported Iron Maiden at the Cambridge Corn Exchange and they also supported Metallica and Megadeth at the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1993 (ish).
I don’t think I owned an Almighty album before this one. I have since bought a couple of extras but this one is very good. I bought it on CD back in the day and was pleased as there was a bonus disk of the band playing at Donington in 1992. This whole album is a good one. Well worth it. A good mix of acoustic and rock along with a few parts of thrash. The main riff in “Addiction” is super.
Favourites of mine are:
- Jesus Loves You But I Don’t – a good break up song.
- Powertrippin’ – (Hear the drummer get wicked)
- Addiction
- Takin’ Hold – (I watched a snail . . . . )
The bonus disc has a great short set from this band live at the Monsters Of Rock concert in 1992. The intro says enough:
Donington – Would you please welcome, from Glasgow, Scotland, the all-loud the all-wild the all-fucking-mighty.
Mr Announcer
The tracks from this make one of the best short live EPs I’ve heard. Decent rock and good crowd interaction.
Practice What You Preach – Testament
Time to admit that although I have listened to this album quite a bit since owning it on a copied tape since I was about 18 there are only two songs that I can really remember. “Practice What You Preach” and “The Greenhouse Effect”. Sure, I’ve listened to the whole thing and I’ve enjoyed the album for many years but if you asked me which songs are on here those two would be your answer with some unqualified hand waving about the others.
I’ve seen Testament twice. Both times was pretty good. The first was alongside other greats of the 80s thrash revolution:
- Suicidal Tendencies
- Testament
- Megadeth
- Slayer
These four bands played a “Clash Of The Titans” tour and I saw them at Wembley Arena. I can still remember watching Testament and being excited at recognising the song “Practice What You Preach”. The other time I saw them was at Koko. Both times I was impressed.
This is one of those important albums where it helped forge the sounds in my head. It gave me breathing space and helped build the future mix of what I would like.
This album also contains a song about how humans are messing up the environment. This album was released in 1989. Climate change isn’t a new thing. It’s just been ignored by politicians for as long as we’ve known about it.
Pure Devotion – Various Artists
I was given this album by a friend, Vince, in the early 2000s. Curiously it was Vince’s wife who gave me two CDs by Rammstein around the same time! Pure Devotion is a compilation album by various artists attached to the Pure Devotion record label. This addition to my collection was worrying. Having been a metal fan for all this time and only really liking guitars, drums and vocals this album started to bring in electronic sounds with an industrial vibe. Along with the bands Senser, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails this was the start of exploring another music genre.
This album is a great starter into industrial-electronic music.
- Beers, Steers and Queers – Revolting Cocks – you know it’s probably good when you can’t tell which is the band name and which is the title. This is a brilliant song from the Revolting Cocks. Everyone should experience this at some point in their life.
- Supernaut – 1000 Homo DJs – this band come up first on my list of iPhone music. I think people find it amusing. This is a cover of the Black Sabbath song and it’s great. They’ve given it that industrial twist.
- No Name, No Slogan – Acid Horse – A classic beat and haunting melodies in the background. A deceivingly simple song.
- Murder Inc. – Murder Inc. – A heavier guitar based song with excellent lyrics. Funny how so much music is written to protest the state of the world.
- Teenage Mind – Hyperhead – This is a spooky early 90s sounding track with steady beats and a trance like quality. Delightful.
- July – Chris Connelly – This is a great song with a simple but working chorus. This man has been involved with so many greats, he’s instrumental to the whole scene: Acid Horse, KMFDM, Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Murder Inc., PTP.
- Faster Than Light – Lead Into Gold – Simple beats with sounds building up along with guitars and excellent vocals. What isn’t to like?
- Rubber Glove Seduction – PTP – Samples, steady beats, an almost “Relax” vibe to it. You can feel the early beginnings of industrial and how it would move music on creating newer metal bands in the late 1990s.
- Re-Release – Malhavoc – Speedy with a certain level of dischord and snarly vocals. This would get the pit going.
- Conquer Your House – Excessive Force – More dance like than most of the others but with distorted vocals. This is good enough for me to buy one of their albums.
- White King – Crow Force – A bit more rock with a rolling riff and faster beat.
- Sympathy For The Devil – Skrew – A delightfully heavy version of the ‘Stones classic. Makes the song darker and more sinister.
- Hoeda, Hoeda – Bomb Everything – A metal song with samples.
- Ten Ground & Down – Pigface – Feels a bit 70s experimental.
This whole album is a great starter into electro-industrial.
Le Mans ’66
I took a recent trip to see a film. I decided I needed to get out and do something and I also wanted to go somewhere new-ish. So, rather than journey over the Medway to Strood I went a little further and made Bluewater my destination. Now, this could have been a terrible decision as it’s the end of November and therefore well into the Christmas shopping season, I don’t do well in crowded places full of people buying shit for a stupid human festival. I have no idea of the state of the tide for my film trip. I didn’t purposely look at the river to observe the tidal phase but I did see a boat on another boat which I will try and get a photograph of next time.
After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB and there is a guide to the rating system in this communication. Then my phone tweets the result as well, such is technology nowadays.
I rated Le Mans '66 (2019) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/lELqm9XHWo
— Ian Parish (@iparish) November 27, 2019
So, what did I think of the film? I enjoyed it. There was the right amount of humour [at least I laughed] and I liked the cars. I wasn’t aware of the life of Phil Hill although I had heard the name before. This film really highlighted his racing career and how he was as a human being. It clearly showed the idea of man and machine as one, racing as fast as possible. The relationship between Hill and Shelby was great to see, as was the battles they faced with the bureaucratic monster that is Ford. There were a few liberties taken with the real story and the film version, but I can live with that.
The race tracks looked bloody amazing. I’m really impressed how, with tons of cash, you can turn the race tracks back into their 60s counterparts. It was nice to see Willow Springs in real life having raced around it in games for many years.
This film highlights some of the main issues with filming racing cars or people driving fast. Firstly to make the scenes look as though they are happening fast the camera is placed down close to the road, this gives the impression of speed because we are accustomed to seeing the road move from a greater height. You’ll see this all the time when cars race in film and it makes me giggle a little when you know they are only doing 40mph but acting as though it’s 100mph.
The second thing is that directors would like us to believe that you can always put your foot down more and there’s always another gear to change into! This isn’t the case. Race drivers use all the gears all the time and will generally be driving as hard as possible. Now, there may be times when they “go EZ” but this still requires the use of all gears but generally they will change at lower revs and avoid full throttle but they are still driving fast. I blame it all on the Fast And The Furious.
Overall, an enjoyable film about those Yanks winning something four times but never before or since in the 87 runnings of the race.
iVardensphere – Electrowerkz
Smith and I travelled to attend the Beat Cancer 2.0 festival last night. Last year we saw Freakangel play somewhere in east London and now the fund raising jaunt returned in a bigger venue and with eight bands. The gig was based in the large room downstairs at Electrowerkz and there was a small bar set up but there wasn’t really a lot of space. It looked like there was a wedding going on in the Tube Train room – you’ll know what I mean if you’ve been there.
So the music started about ninety minutes late. The organiser blamed Lufthansa as the headline band, iVardensphere, were in Germany at the beginning of the day and without planes had to get to London. They managed this and set up but the running order was late by a long way. I had an important event to attend the next morning and so while the event was scheduled to finish at midnight I didn’t mind that once the delay was announced it made seeing all the bands rather problematic. I guess most people attending didn’t have to march through a town in a Remembrance Parade eight hours later.
First band up were Drakenwerks who I had missed by turning up late to another gig when they supported Nachtmahr. My notes say that the band was made of a man and woman, they were OK and played upbeat electronics with a hint of EBM.
The lighting rig seemed to consist of single colour washes for each song. In the above I caught a “green” song.
Then there was Vain Machine. Two chaps from the USA and it was their first time in London. It was a bit too goth for me. They even played a terrible cover version of “I was made for loving you” by Kiss.
Then there was the band of the organisers. The people who run this charity gig had a band and they played. It was experimental bullshit. A wall of noise. It was terrible. They were called Bein-E. Their full name was a massive German word but I only saw it on one piece of literature and didn’t make a note of it.
Then there was Cygnosic. This band was much more upbeat. The vocals were “growly” and while I didn’t understand what they were saying it was an improvement on most of the previous bands. The only problem was that their songs had no variation within. The structure was a single unit and lasted three minutes and stopped. I needed some form of difference as the song progressed. Judging by the accent of the singer when he spoke the band were from Spain or maybe Italy or similar [if they are Portuguese then I’ve probably offended a whole country!].
It was now 23:00 and there were three bands to go. iVardensphere wouldn’t finish until around 01:30 and I had stuff I was required to do the next morning. I had to call it a day and drive home. I’m gutted, but at least I have seen the Sphere before. They were really good both previous times but I can’t change my schedule. I’ll see them again one day soon I expect.
I missed:
- Nature Of Wires
- C-Lekktor
- iVardensphere
So, after all that I saw five bands of varying degrees of not-good and the one band I really wanted to see I couldn’t as I had to get home to parade the next morning in Maidstone. I was gutted but also aware of my commitments and limitations. It was good to see the Smith.