I Have A Headwound (In The Kitchen)

I made an animation for one of my old de/V/oid songs.

who can spot the subtle socio-political subtext?

Grange Hill R.I.P

Like me, Grange Hill the BBC’s school-based childrens series, turns thirty this year, unlike me it is being killed off by BBC bosses who have decided that it is no longer relavant to today’s youth. Rather peculiar that, given the fact that kids, do indeed still go to school.

The fact of the matter is, of course, the fact that Grange Hill (like Top of the Pops before it) has been deliberately strangled by bad writing, and a production team who you can just smell are milky-white and middle-class.

I guess I was lucky to grow up in the eighties where it wasn’t felt necessary to patronise the viewer, like so much of today’s BBC output does. Eastenders in the eighties was full of grit and realism and colour. Today it is a tragi-comic farce of poor writing, terrible character development and atrocious continuity.

So no, I won’t be watching today’s final episode of Grange Hill.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of dumbing down – can anyone tell me why the BBC news appears to be aimed at mentally disabled, Daily Mail readers?

Here for old times sake is the origianl opening credits. I always liked the bit with the sausage.

Last Mofungo recordings

Mofungo were one of the many bands that sprung from the loins of No Wave, and went on to record a slew of records throughout the eighties. There is a rather nice piece on them on Perfect Sound Forever.

Anyhow there last unreleased tracks are available for free download, from former band member, Willie Klein, here.

Free Wichita Records Sampler

Wichita Records has a free 15-track sampler up for download here.

Here’s the tracklisiting:

01. Tasty Boy – Those Dancing Days
02.Human Hair – Lovvers
03. Molten – Sky Larkin
04. How I Taught Myself to Scream – Los Campesinos!
05. Knifeman – The Bronx
06. Meet Me in the Dollar Bin – Les Savy Fav
07. I Dont Want To Die (In The Hospital) – Conor Oberst
08. Tell Me In Time – Peter Moren
09. Burn The Margins – Greg Weeks
10. Saving Up To Get Married – Euros Childs
11. Maiden in the Moor Lay – Meg Baird
12. Paint The Rust – The Dodos
13. Inland Empire – Peter Bjorn & John
14. I Got This Down (Invisible Conga People Mix) – Simian Mobile Disco
15. The Year In Review – Her Space Holiday

Count yourself lucky that there’s no Bloc Party on there!

September is here (with Pulsallama)

Ok, so it’s September already and I realise that I haven’t decently updated this blog for months (indeed since I quit my job and didn’t find myself needing to surreptiously kill an hour of time here and there). Anywho, in the weeks/months since I last updated this I’ve moved to the Netherlands; swam in lakes; made music; stayed out all night pissed on Irish coffee; and got for a variety of hit and miss job interviews.

I’m now rather hoping that with the many long dark nights that are ahead I’ll have a bit more where-withal to write this, but we’ll see. In the meantime here are downtown 12-piece, percussion led, 80s NY types Pulsallama, with The Devil Lies In My Husbands Body.

I don’t think that there is really any CD reissue of Pulsallama stuff (and their output was rather limited) but there are some MP3’s here.