This is interesting. We are used to the idea of Easter eggs (hidden extras) in DVDs and the like. But how could there be an Easter egg on television?

Unless you are like me, it is probably not very exciting. But if you miss those late nights in the company of Carole Hersee and Bubbles the Clown, then this is a treat. It is accessible in the vast majority of DTT / Freeview boxes, but some older ones won’t cope.

Here are the instructions:

• Turn to the BBCi channel (i.e. channel 105)
• Once the BBCi menu has loaded up, press YELLOW
• Turn to a different channel (any channel will do)
• Turn back to BBCi on 105
• Once the BBCi menu has loaded up, press GREEN. The word “secret” should now display in the top-right of the screen
• Wait for the “Status” page to appear
• Press 3 3 5 8 2 RED GREEN YELLOW BLUE (33582 spells ‘delta’ on a phone keypad)
• Wait a short while

Ta-da!

It is probably used for engineering purposes, although it seems a bit odd that it has to be hidden away behind a code quite as convoluted as this. The “status” page is also tantalising and intriguing. The borders around the edge are ’safe areas’ and it is possible to change your region. But the rest is a bit puzzling to me. But I suppose it would be given that it’s not designed to be seen by the like of me.

The full details are at Digital Spy.

Via deeteetee.

Record labels and video distributors had been ticked off by consumers for charging high prices for quite a while. At first the labels got away with it though. This was because they actually added value to the product. They were the only ones who were able to actually deliver the product to consumers efficiently.

However, with the advent of the internet and explosion of file-sharing, they are no longer the only people who can deliver content. It’s even worse than that. They are now woefully inefficient at delivering content.

The big question staring the record companies in the face has been: why should people pay £10 or £20 to buy a CD or a DVD when they could download it for free? Their original answer to this question has been to criminalise the very fans whose custom they depend upon. At every turn, consumers of music are accused of stealing music and killing the record industry.

Not exactly the best way to build a loyal fanbase.

Since that approach didn’t work, the record labels reluctantly dipped their toe into the digital water. But even this was a complete disaster. They insisted on releasing music that was crippled by DRM. This shackled the music, yet again making the consumer feel like a criminal.

The worst instances of DRM prevent people from listening to music on different devices. A high-profile example is music purchased from the iTunes Music Store, which can’t be played on any device unless it was made by Apple. That is like buying a CD released by Sony BMG and only being allowed to play it on CD players manufactured by Sony. It is outrageous, and it is a wonder that the music industry ever felt that it was a sensible approach. Sadly, the most blinkered companies still release digital music in this way.

Incidentally, kudos should go to Warp Records, who recognised from the very start that its fans wouldn’t like to be treated as criminals. Its foray into the digital download world, Bleep, sells music at the highest quality the MP3 format can provide and entirely without DRM.

Some albums are even available as lossless (i.e. CD-quality) FLAC files. And you are allowed to preview the entire track before purchasing. Some albums also come with exclusive artwork, screensavers and so on. Furthermore, a (comparatively) huge cut of the profits goes to the artists, which is where fans like to see profits go.

Now hundreds of independent labels sell their music on the service. Bleep has been a huge success, having sold over a million downloads. The majors should have realised that this is how it should have been done from the start.

The problem facing the record industry remains. Their expertise was in distribution, but this advantage was removed by the internet. Their solutions don’t address the fundamental problem. Why should someone buy a digital download when they can get it for free from peer-to-peer networks?

The worst solutions were never going to work because they made the consumer feel like criminals. The better solutions — like Bleep — work to an extent because they tickle the fan’s tummy, making him feel good.

Regardless of what the record companies would like to think, the internet has greatly improved efficiency and has made consumers better off. Unless they really like pretty boxes, a choice between buying a CD for upwards of £10 or downloading the music for free is a no-brainer.

Sticking plaster solutions such as reducing the price of CDs or releasing DRM-infected MP3s were never going to do. And you can’t un-invent the internet. In their current state, record companies are a complete anachronism. An entirely new business model is needed in order for them to survive. It is the only way. For some of them, it may already be too late.

But I think there is an answer. And I think they are catching on to it. But I’ll write about that in my next post.

I hope you all managed to have a good Christmas. I have to say, I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed Christmas so much.

In recent years I have enjoyed it just as a nice day off with a big meal. But beyond that I didn’t enjoy them much more than a normal day of leisure. So maybe I’d watch my new DVDs, but I would probably spend a great deal of the day on the internet anyway.

Perhaps it is because I have had such a tough year (not emotionally tough, but physically and mentally). Maybe it was because last year my brother wasn’t here, but it was probably mostly because I have become older, jaded and cynical.

Of course, when you’re young, Christmas is probably the most exciting part of the year. All those presents! Unfortunately as you get older this wears off. One day you find that you have the responsibility to give presents as well, with all the shopping hell that entails. And soon enough you might be earning enough to buy pretty much all of the luxuries you want.

For that reason, I always tell my parents to try and surprise me. They still want me to write them a list of what I want, but that is rubbish. Normally if I want stuff I can just buy them anyway. So I find myself not buying things just so that I can put them on my Christmas list. What a load of old bum. What is the point of knowing what you are getting anyway?

So I was quite pleased when my parents decided to buy me a poker set, which I completely didn’t expect. I didn’t even realise the big box was meant to be for me, so I just left it at first.

Apparently my father didn’t really want to get me it in case it encourages me to gamble. I think that’s a bit rich coming from someone who spends £2 on the lottery every week, but there you go! I doubt I’d ever gamble myself. I am pretty risk-averse and the odds are always stacked against you.

I have kind of hinted at getting a poker set before, but only as a sort of “ooh, wouldn’t that be amusing” kind of thing. I wasn’t dead serious about getting one. But I found myself getting quite excited about it, and we all played a game later in the evening.

I had never played a game of poker before, and I knew very little about it. All I knew was whatever I gleaned from watching Late Night Poker back in the day, which was very little. I only ever watched that because there was nothing else on, and I was mesmerised by the amazing under-the-table cameras.

My brother led us all by the hand, explaining the rules as we went along. My parents were knocked out quickly, and it was just the young’uns — me, my brother and his girlfriend — left. Time flew by really quickly. Before we realised it, three hours had passed and it was after midnight.

And in the end, I won my first ever game of poker! Muhahah!

And this evening, I won at Scrabble. This is in stark contrast to my record on Facebook Scrabble (won 2, lost 8). This winning streak is unusual, because normally I am just one big loser. I should ride the wave and carry these optimistic feelings with me into 2008. It’s a big year, so being optimistic is probably the only way I can get things done from now on, even though it goes against my instincts.

What else did I get for Christmas? Well, most of the other stuff was on my list. A few books to add to the ever-growing pile of books I haven’t yet got round to reading. Jackie Stewart’s autobiography (very hefty looking and thorough — unlike Lewis Hamilton, Jackie Stewart has lived a life), The Long Tail and Dead Children Playing.

My brother got me Dead Children Playing, although I had already bought it for myself and had got it wrapped up. Amusingly, I bought it partly as a backup for my brother in case I couldn’t find him anything better (eventually I got him this). That we both got it for each other is a sign that it was a good present, I think. We are keeping a copy each.

I also got a few DVDs — the F1 season review, 30 Century Man (a documentary about Scott Walker) and Taking Liberties (a documentary about Tony Blair riding roughshod over the constitution).

I have just watched Taking Liberties and I can very much recommend it. It concisely documents what is happening to this country under the Labour government and why it matters. It demonstrates that this affects a wide range of people and includes interviews from critics of the government across the political spectrum, from all of the major parties. If you don’t recognise the loss of freedoms that is happening in this country, you should watch this film and you will soon enough understand.

The film looks as though it’s only half of the story as well, because taking a look at the list of DVD extras, there is lots more to get through.

Back to normal tomorrow I think. I decided — two days off: Christmas Day and Boxing Day. But deadlines loom. Back to writing essays and dissertations tomorrow.

I was beginning to lose my faith in Sigur Rós a bit. Takk… was a pretty good album, but lacked the oceanic beauty of Ágætis Byrjun, the novelty of ( ) and the experimentation of Von and Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do. The most recent EP, Sæglópur, contained the most boring output I have ever heard Sigur Rós release.

So I was not expecting too much from their latest release, Hvarf / Heim, a double CD. The Hvarf CD contains “new electric recordings”, although really it seems to be old leftover songs that never made it to an album.

‘Salka’ is nothing particularly special. ‘Í Gær’, meanwhile, sounds like it was specifically designed to be used on any television programmes that want to evoke a kind of creepy, wintery feel. That tuned percussion provides plenty of ammunition for those who have bemoan the use of same Sigur Rós songs on television over and over again. (’Í Gær’ is the music used in the Heima trailer which I have embedded at the bottom of this post.)

However, it is good to see ‘Hjómalind’ (what used to be called ‘Rokklagið’) finally getting a proper release. But why not ‘Fönklagið’? It might not fit in with their current image, but I still think it’s a great, fun song.

The reworked version of ‘Von’ is also a pleasant listen. The new version of ‘Hafsól’ is fantastic as well, although was previously released as the B-side to ‘Hoppípolla’ so is not really anything new.

Heim meanwhile is a disc of live acoustic recordings of classic Sigur Rós songs. The songs are inevitably a little bit stripped back and raw. Some of the performances were recorded in outdoor locations. In ‘Heysátan’ in particular you can hear the birds enjoying the performance.

Despite the stripped back nature of the album, long time collaborators Amiina perform alongside Sigur Rós, meaning that the band’s grand sound remains in some songs. After all, ‘Starálfur’ would be nothing without the string quartet.

But the best song on the disc is performed by Sigur Rós alone. ‘Ágætis Byrjun’ has long been my favourite song by the band, so it was always going to be a stand out for me on Heim. The original version is largely acoustic anyway, but there are still a couple of subtle differences. The piano almost takes its rightful place at the forefront.

Part of what I love about this song is the fact that most of it sounds beautiful, but dissonant notes briefly appear just after the climax of each chorus. I wonder why? “An all right (but not perfect) beginning” perhaps. Whatever, these bits stand out a lot more in this live version than on the album version, and it sends a shiver down my spine.

But the best part of the tripartite alliterative Sigur Rós bonanza that hit the shops this month is the DVD of the film, Heima. It follows Sigur Rós touring Iceland, playing a series of free concerts in a diverse variety of locations.

Conventional concerts are documented. My favourite moment of these is at the start, where the band are performing ‘Sé Lest’. At the appropriate moment, a local brass band unexpectedly emerges from backstage to perform the brass part. But the moment is fleeting as the band walks between the members of Sigur Rós, climbs off the stage, makes its way through the audience members and out of the door.

As well as conventional concerts, the band also performs in some stranger places, such as an abandoned fish factory (where lead singer Jón Þór Birgisson and Amiina perform in a giant fish-oil tank, creating a peculiar audio resonance). The band also played a protest concert, performed without using any electricity, where a dam was being built at Snæfell.

The Icelandic tourism board must be cock-a-hoop. The film follows Sigur Rós, but it focuses as much on the scenery as it does on the band. The whole film has a beautiful visual style because of this. Heima will probably do more to advertise Iceland as a potential tourist location than anything else.

The film also follows Sigur Rós visiting some locations for pleasure. The best of these features is about Páll Stefánsson, who makes percussion instruments out of natural materials. The film shows Stefánsson tirelessly testing stones, checking the tone each makes, so that he can build a stone marimba. Sigur Rós later perform an improvisation on the makeshift instrument.

I was a bit apprehensive about buying the Heima DVD. I can never resist buying the limited edition if there is one, and this one cost £25. But with two discs (the second disc contains two hours worth of full performances of each song featured in the main film, spanning all four of their albums) and lush packaging, it feels worth it.

In fact, the artwork and packaging is a strong point of Heima and Hvarf / Heim. Both feature nostalgic-looking, treated photographs. They have been deliberately aged, with colours bleeding. It is similar to what Boards of Canada do, but I think the Sigur Rós artwork is even more evocative.

The limited edition DVD comes with a 116 page photo book. A lot of the photography is stunning — as good as the photography in the actual film. And, most importantly, the book itself smells wonderful (smell, I find, is one of the most important aspects of music packaging).

Now I find it incredible that I was actually reluctant or indifferent about buying these. I was becoming tired of Sigur Rós, but Hvarf / Heim and Heima have reminded me why I love the band so much. If you were swithering like me, I would advise you just to buy.

• Heima on Eighteen Seconds Before Sunrise
• Hvarf / Heim website
• Heima website

Cinema has had a good year. The Scotsman reports:

FUTURE-gazers claimed 20 years ago that it would be doomed by the arrival of the home video recorder.

And more recently they’ve been claiming that the internet is killing the entertainment industry. So how do they explain the following two paragraphs?

But figures released yesterday reveal that the cinema is set to enjoy a golden 2007 in the UK, with the largest number of visits to film theatres in 40 years.

The wettest summer on record and a slew of blockbuster sequels led to 50.8 million visits to UK cinemas between June and August.

This is despite the fact that people are supposedly killing cinema by downloading pirate films from the internet. This surely suggests that the entertainment industry has got it wrong when it points at the internet for its failings. This summer shows that the film industry should spend less time running scared of the internet, and more time simply giving people what they want.

This is what I got my brother for Christmas:

This is what my brother got me for Christmas:

I guess that’s almost the same as exchanging five pound notes.

alt="DefectiveByDesign.org"
width="110" height="32" border="0" align="middle" />
Protect your freedom!

I just found out that today is the Day Against
DRM.

It shouldn’t really be the case that an album of old tracks that never made it onto proper albums is one of the most hotly anticipated albums of the year. But it is very difficult not to get excited about Tortoise’s music, particularly when most of it comes from the band’s most fertile period.

A Lazarus Taxon is a mammoth compendium of rarities from one of the most revered bands of the past fifteen years. Three CDs are filled to the brim, and a bonus DVD is thrown in for good measure. And it costs little more than a normal album. This is craziness!

The first thing you notice about A Lazarus Taxon, though, is the bleakness of the packaging: black and white photographs of car crashes taken by Arnold Odermatt. The photographs are brilliant, but apart from that I have to wonder why Tortoise decided to use these as the artwork for a box set that almost sums up their career.

In their review of this album, Pitchfork described the album as having “tombstone vibe”:

…in many ways they remain emblematically tied to the mid- to late-1990s, a time when indie rock remixes were a real mind blower and everyone was scrimping for their own marimba.

It is unfortunately true that Tortoise’s heyday has probably been and gone. Although my personal favourite Tortoise album is the relatively recent Standards from 2001, there are few people who would say that their last proper album, It’s All Around You, is their best. And if the startlingly bland album of cover versions made with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, The Brave and The Bold, is a sign of things to come, it is difficult to get excited about new Tortoise material. Not as excited as you would get about old Tortoise material anyway.

So along comes A Lazarus Taxon to remind us what all the fuss was about. And make no mistake — that fuss was justified. Hearing Tortoise’s music was one of the major reasons why I started getting interested in more experimental music about five years ago.

‘Experimental’ is a term that is used far too liberally when no actual experimentation takes place, but Tortoise surely deserve the tag. They are often credited with inventing a genre — post-rock, a kind of krautrock updated for the 1990s where indie-rock, electronic music, Steve Reich-style minimalism and jazz all met with ease. This is a band that was so unconventional that the first appearance of a (not bass) guitar was a big step — pretty weird for a rock band. Tortoise turned the vibraphone into a rock and roll instrument, man!

At their peak, Tortoise were able to defy your expectations, turning their music inside-out at ease, making the listener rip up his expectations over and over again — and not just for the sake of it. Tortoise were one of the few bands that were able to push the boundaries and experiment without coming close to disappearing up their back chute.

Can you imagine any other bands being able to create an epic like ‘Djed’? Lasting twenty-one minutes, the track begins as a quaint melody played on the bass guitar which becomes a driving mid-tempo foot-tapping quasi-jam. The party is interrputed by the most evil-sounding keyboard you’ll ever hear, which in turn becomes a mind-bending Steve Reich-influenced marimba / vibraphone showdown. The hypnotic percussion is interrupted by a ‘tape accident’ which eventually leads to the relaxed, ambienty conclusion. Despite the vast range of styles and moods explored in the track, it is cohesive — every single move makes sense. I really struggle to think of any other bands that could even dream of creating something like this.

Despite the high bar that Tortoise have set on their most well-known material, A Lazarus Taxon does not sound like just a bunch of sub-standard B-sides and obscurities thrown together. Almost everything on this album is every bit as strong as Tortoise’s regular album tracks. It is a real testament to the quality of the band that even Tortoise offal is so good.

Perhaps the only real disappointment about this album is that despite the length — almost three hours — a quick glance at Tortoise’s discography confirms that this comes nowhere close to tying up all those loose ends. Perhaps this is a simple case of choosing quality over quantity, but the quality of this album has only made me more eager to finally learn how to use Soulseek so that I can track down those obscure, forgotten remixes.

So what about that quality? The first two discs of the set are made up of remixes, Japanese bonus tracks and miscellaneous other tracks from out-of-print EPs. The album kicks off with ‘Gamera’, which appears to be one of Tortoise’s most famous tracks despite the fact that it is considered a ‘rarity’. The track is immediately familiar, as it is a reworking of ‘His Second Story Island’ from Tortoise’s eponymous debut album.

Other highlights include ‘Restless Waters’ (a chilled out reworking of ‘Dear Grandma and Grandpa’), ‘Blue Station’ (the beautiful Japanese bonus track for the Standards album) and the amusing ‘Waihopai’ (from the ‘Gently Cupping the Chin of the Ape’ tour EP). Autechre’s two remixes of ‘Ten Day Interval’ are also real standouts. You couldn’t dream of having two better acts working together, and both of them near the top of their game aswell.

For me, the album’s low point comes in the form of ‘Elmerson, Lincoln and Palmeri’ and ‘Deltitnu’, the inconsequential Japanese bonus tracks for It’s All Around You. Nobukazu Takemura’s ten minute-long remix of ‘TNT’ could have done with being half its length aswell.

The third disc is basically a reissue of Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters, an album of remixes from Tortoise’s debut album — but with the inclusion of ‘Cornpone Brunch Watt Remix’ which had to be left off the original after the DAT master was damaged in the post.

Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters is perhaps the most sought-after part of A Lazarus Taxon, although it is a bit of a disappointment to me. Maybe ten years ago it was revolutionary, but today it just sounds a bit rambling. There are some pleasent moments (some nice fuzzy ambient efforts) and it was worth the effort to include ‘Cornpone Brunch Watt Remix’, but for the most part RR&C doesn’t do much for me.

The DVD, where there was so much potential, is also a bit of a let down. The videos, apart from ‘Seneca’ and ‘Salt the Skies’, are poor and have dated badly.

Much of the live material is also of low quality. The band is absolutely fine, but the majority of the live footage — taken from a 1996 concert in Toronto — looks like it has been filmed on whatever was one step above a camcorder ten years ago. It certainly looks as though it’s been shot by amateurs, and the sound is badly out of synch with the pictures — very off-putting, especially when you’re watching the percussionists. It is like watching something on YouTube, not a DVD. I guess if that’s all there is then it’s obviously better than nothing, but it’s still a bit of a let down.

I was also looking forward to seeing ‘Seneca’ live, but that turned out to be Tortoise miming (pretending to play toy instruments) to an audience of bemused children on a television programme called Chic-A-Go-Go.

A better haul of videos can be found on YouTube, and I’ve collected some of them below the fold…

Despite the slightly more disappointing aspects, though, A Lazarus Taxon is a very special collection of tracks. Apart from including more tracks, it is difficult to imagine how this album could be better. A lot of gems have been plucked from obscurity, which is something to be grateful for. If you’re even slightly interested in Tortoise, you really should buy it. Three CDs and a DVD of excellent material, and it costs little more than a normal album.

• Preview the album from Bleep (you have to press play every 30 seconds):
  
• Information on A Lazarus Taxon at Thrill Jockey
• Tortoise website
• Thrill Jockey website
• Tortoise on Wikipedia
• Boomkat review of A Lazarus Taxon

Click for more »

I’ll be honest here. I’ve gone right off Plaid over these past few years. ‘Double Figure’ is a brilliant album in my view, but everything after that seemed a bit half-hearted. All of their music started to sound the same, and I even remember reading an interview where Ed Handley and Andy Turner pretty much admitted so. I never bought ‘Spokes’ after it received some pretty mixed reviews.

But I have always been interested in their DVD project, ‘Greedy Baby’, so I snapped it up. It is an album-length collaboration with visual artist Bob Jaroc. They began working on Greedy Baby not long after ‘Double Figure’ came out. Which is a long time ago. In the end they spent four years making ‘Greedy Baby’. Alarm bells should start ringing. Reading between the lines in some interviews, they are just relieved for it to be finished.

Apparently the music to ‘Greedy Baby’ was leaked a few weeks ago. I try to avoid leaks because you can never been 100% sure that you are listening to the real deal. But the initial reaction was bad. I couldn’t decide whether or not to buy ‘Greedy Baby’. In the end I decided to go for it because it has the rather good video to ‘New Family’ included as an extra. I saw Plaid live way back in 2002 and Bob Jaroc’s visuals were memorable, so I thought buying ‘Greedy Baby’ wouldn’t be much of a risk.

It doesn’t start promisingly though. The first track is the absolutely ridiculous ‘War Dialer’. Nothing happens in the music apart from lots of dialling tones and people saying “Hello? Hello?” What a load of rubbish. The visuals are quite good-looking, but clocking in at four minutes long it just gets too boring too quickly. Maybe it sounds good in surround sound, but I wouldn’t know as I am a thwarted two speaker boy.

Luckily, the second track saves the day. ‘I Citizen The Loathsome’ starts off as quite a routine Plaid track, but it builds up into a complete masterpiece. For me, it is undoubtedly the highlight of the album, at least as far as the music goes.

Much of the rest of the DVD follows pretty predictable lines. Most of the videos are pleasent abstract screensaver-style pieces of beauty. It’s the sort of thing you would expect to see as a backdrop to a live show, so it’s maybe not best suited for home viewing. You see a lot of these videos rather than watching them. My favourite of the ’screensaver-style’ videos is ‘The Launching of Big Face’. The music is a fast but twinkling melody. It is accompanied by gentle visuals with a Rorschach-style symmetry. Very pleasent.

Leaving the more abstract videos to the side, we have ‘Zn Zero’. It is an electronic music video set in Japan. Where did they get that idea? Nevertheless, it does have some nice-looking moments, although the music isn’t too good on this track. That is followed by ‘The Return of Super Barrio’, which has a story! It’s like a cartoon. So you can’t just see it — you have to watch it.

Overall, ‘Greedy Baby’ okay, but not great. Some of the videos make for interesting viewing, but a lot of the videos are most suitable to zoning out to, especially when some of them last for up to ten minutes (I am talking about ‘E.M.R’ here). Some of the music is really good, but a lot of it is unspectacular and very much in the predictably Plaid mould. It sounds as though Plaid have decided that they need their music to sound dissonant for some reason. It’s a funny choice for a duo renowned for its melodic music. I don’t think they quite pull it off.

The DVD’s extras are in actual fact the most captivating moments. We have four tracks here, all versions of tracks from the ‘Spokes’ and ‘Double Figure’ albums. The video to ‘Crumax Rins’ is made up of timelapsed images from CNN’s coverage of the Iraq War. Probably trying to make some sort of point.

The best ones are the three from ‘Double Figure’ though. Maybe this is me just being nostalgic for the album and the videos which I recognised as backdrops from that Plaid gig four years ago. The ‘Assault on Precinct Zero’ video features Plaid’s robotic cameras which gave grainy close-up shots of lots of knob twiddling, thereby proving once and for all that they weren’t just checking their emails on those laptops.

‘Zala’ is a memorable video. I can’t explain it. It’s like a cross between 1970s sci-fi, Tellytubby Land and Communist propaganda. But the standout is the popular video to ‘New Family’, which you can view on the Greedy Baby website! Good stuff.

So overall I am left with mixed impressions. Some of the music seems unspectacular at first, but if it grows on me I could at last be tempted to fill in the gaps of my Plaid collection. The visuals I can’t complain about, although it doesn’t always make for captivating viewing. If you want an electronic music DVD, I would be more likely to recommend Meam’s ‘The L’, which is a bit of an overlooked masterpiece in my view.

Finally, a big pat on the back should go to Warpmart for sending the coolest freebie I’ve ever received.

Warpmart have been given a limited number of small bags of short frames of super 8 film from an unnamed new collaboration by Plaid and Bob Jaroc shot recently in Japan. This film will be finished after the release of the album. This is your chance to own not only the dvd/album but also a genuine physical piece of Plaid and Bob’s creative process for free

Fantastic!

• Greedy Baby minisite
• Plaid website
• Bob Jaroc website
• Buy ‘Greedy Baby’ from Warpmart

The Look Around You series 2 DVD is coming out on 16^th January. Excellent! The cover can be seen here.

Sorry, I haven’t been posting much in the past few days.

I got the Big Train DVD for Christmas, and I’ve been watching it just about non-stop ever since. It’s brilliant, and I’m surprised at how much I remember of it given that it was broadcast in 1998 (which will have made me 12 at the time!) and was never repeated. Back in those days, sketch shows were actually good, and didn’t have the same jokes in them every week (well, there was World Championship Stare-Out, but the jokes were different every time).

Anyway, the point of this post is that over the next few days I’m going to write a few end-of-year posts (I bet you can’t wait!), and then I’ll upgrade to WordPress 2.0, at which point everything will break.

The Armando Iannucci Shows are coming to DVD! At last!

I’ve already written several posts about Nathan Barley (use the search if you want to see what I thought), so I won’t go on too much about the actual programme. But the DVD came out a couple of weeks ago and I have a few more thoughts.

Opinion on Nathan Barley still seems sharply divided. Most seem to hate it, but that might just be because I visit Cook’d and Bomb’d, a Chris Morris “fan” site that actually hates Morris’ guts, and whose visitors go wibble if he isn’t doing his Jeremy Paxman impressions. Nathan Barley led to record-breaking poor viewing figures for Channel 4. I always thought Friday at 10 o’clock (the same slot as Big Brother evictions for goodness’ sake) was a strange place to put a programme like Nathan Barley; a late night weekday slot would surely have been more apt.

Still, a commited few, including me, think that Nathan Barley was actually a brilliant progamme, and the more I watch it the more I like it. But I’ve come to think that the series is a bit unfocussed. The first clue is that the programme is as much about Dan Ashcroft as it is about the eponymous character.

The release of the DVD also gives us a chance to compare it to the original pilot episode, which is a work of genius in comparison with the actual series. It contains a lot of the best bits of the series, like Dan Ashcroft’s haircut and 15peter20’s exhibition — and lots of other funny stuff that didn’t make the actual series. That’s disappointing because some of the actual broadcast episodes can go for ages without there being much in the way of jokes, like the bit when Ashcroft has to attend the nightclub in his Preacher Man gear — a scene that lasts about three times as long as it needs to.

The pilot feels closer to the original Nathan Barley character from the “Cunt” columns in TV Go Home. For instance, in the pilot Nathan Barley acts as though he has money on tap — this doesn’t happen as much in the series itself, but it’s much more obvious in the pilot. Barley also seems like more of a media all-rounder in the pilot. Straight away he’s collaborating with Claire on a documentary project. In the series, though, he’s little more than just an annoying person who shouts into his silly mobile phone.

A lot of the pilot material was re-used for the series, which leads to an error in the episode where Barley gets a Geek Pie haircut. In the actual broadcast episode you see him spit out the dummy at the end of his haircut. I didn’t know what it was all about until I watched the pilot episode, so why was him spitting out the dummy left in the actual programme?

All-in-all, though, I think Nathan Barley is a good programme. There are some great lines and brilliant characters who appear all too briefly, particularly the Channel 7 commissioner. A lot of these sorts of jokes maybe go over most people’s heads though, which might explain the ratings bomb. I’m convinced, for instance, that the anti-drugs singer-songwriter visting the school is a piss-take of Graham Coxon — but how many Friday night Channel 4 viewers even know who Graham Coxon is?

As for the DVD itself, there are some good (but not great) extras — but not a lot. Apart from the pilot, the best one is the booklet that comes with the DVD, which is an amusing spoof of middle class graffiti artist Banksy’s work. I’ve only come across one Easter egg, featuring Barley amusingly trying to explain away his tan line. The menus are quite amusing aswell, with Barley clowning up in public with his mobile phone permanently aloft.

I guess whether or not there is a second series hinges on DVD sales (and whether or not Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris can resolve the creative disagreement they’re apparently having). I’d love for there to be a second series, because I’m sure there’s more to come from this programme, which is severely under-rated in my opinion.

In the eyes of the media company anyway (old Scottish joke alert; sorry).

From The Economist:

“If consumers even know there’s a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we’ve already failed,” says Peter Lee, an executive at Disney.

CoCo on this:

Disney executive Peter Lee suggests consumers should be treated like the unknowledgeable children that visit his fairy tale parks

Via Cabalamat Journal.

Nathan Barley is coming out on DVD! I like that cover (Nath//anBa//rley). The end of this year is going to be far too expensive. I notice that Amazon have it on offer with series one of The Mighty Boosh…

Interview with Chris Cunningham, director of Rubber Johnny.

I’m posting this in every single category to make sure everybody who might need this gets it.

I’ve decided that my categories are a mess, and tomorrow I’m going to attempt to clean them up a bit. I’ll be creating new categories, deleting rubbish old ones, and changing where they go. Some posts might end up in different places. Just a heads up, because it does mean that some feed URLs, and indeed website URLs, will change.

Part 10 of AFX’s eleven-part Analord series arrived this week. Strangely, Analord 10 was the first of the series to be released, but only if you were prepared to pay some silly amount for a binder to hold it in. Now Analord 10 has been re-released as a picture disc. Lovely. The only problem is working out which side is which…

Despite the fact that I’ve been on holiday since the middle of April or something stupid (I can’t even remember how long I’ve been on holiday for) I’ve not got around to listening to the entire series yet. In the meantime, you can read this review of it from Speakers Push the Air.

While we’re on the subject of music, this already brilliant (ie. expensive) year for music (I mean, come on, eleven EPs from Richard D James!) is going to become even more brilliant (ie. expensive) towards the end of the year.

An email I got from Warp Records this week confirms that — at last! — a new album from Boards of Canada (their first since the beginning of 2002 ferchrissake) is on its way, with a vague release date and everything (October)! It feels like no time at all since Broadcast’s last album, but it’s actually been two years. Goodness! They’ve also got EPs and albums due out towards the end of the year.

!!! are also back on the go, and that Plaid DVD — surely that’s going to come out this year? Don’t forget the new Sigur Rós album aswell. I’m struggling to think of a band that I like that hasn’t brought anything out this year. There is Squarepusher, but I can’t complain — he had four releases last year. Whow.

A DVD landed on my doormat this morning. It’s the latest short film from the weirdo-director Chris Cunningham, who has directed music videos for Autechre, Björk and Madonna, but is probably most famous for his award-winning videos for Aphex Twin.

What the hell is Rubber Johnny though? The blurby synopsis thing on the websites probably explains it best:

Johnny is a hyperactive, shape-shifting mutant child. Kept locked away in a basement with only his feverish imagination and his terrified dog for company, he finds ways to amuse himself in the dark.

The film lasts just six minutes, but we are taken on a right old journey in Johnny’s basement. This is a short film that is so weird that its release apparently had to be delayed because the original printing firm refused to print the accompanying book because they thought it would cause too much distress to their workers. Because when Johnny shape-shifts he really shifts shape. Rubber Johnny is almost like a human version of Gantz Graf, the Autechre video directed by Alexander Rutterford that is perfectly synchronised to the music.

Rubber Johnny is an extension of a thirty-second promo for Aphex Twin’s excellent 2001 album, DrukQs. Cunningham extrapolated the idea and worked on it in his spare time until it got to the finished product you see on the DVD (read more in this interview). As such, and because it lasts such a short length of time, Rubber Johnny could almost be seen as an elaborate pop video. Except that it could never be a pop video. To the soundtrack of Aphex Twin’s track, Afx237 V.7, as well as other bits and pieces from DrukQs, Johnny does the strangest dance you’ll ever see.

Rubber Johnny is horrific and hilarious in equal measure. At the start it just seems horrific simply because of the nature of Johnny. But as the music gets faster, Johnny becomes so extreme — Chris Cunningham pushes things so far — that it becomes ridiculous. Now, watching it, it’s tough not to crack a smile. Just as it reaches its peak Johnny is suddenly interrupted by his father, and everything is dark once again.

The film is good, but presumably because of the difficulty of creating such an elaborate character in moving form, the accompanying 42 page book is, in some ways, better. You don’t get the strange dancing or the hilarious synchronisation. Looking at the photographs you get a much better idea of what Rubber Johnny is supposed to be.

All-in-all, I’m quite impressed with Rubber Johnny. It certainly merits repeated viewing. But for just six minutes of film, the price tag is possibly a bit steep.

• Rubber Johnny
• Warp Films
• Warp Records
• DrukQs
• Director File

Armando Iannucci’s new programme, The Thick of It, is finally starting next Thursday on BBC Four. The Observer has a preview piece on it, and it sounds like it’s going to be one of the very best programmes of the year.

…Chris Morris, his friend and collaborator on The Day Today, says [it] ‘is one of the best things he’s ever done, if not the best thing’.

…

In the first of the series, a new unit, the Anti-Benefit Fraud Executive (ABFE) understatedly goes through several name changes in the course of the programme, becoming Scambusters, Snooper Force and Sponge Avengers. The idea that getting the name right has become the most important thing feels horribly realistic, as does a pervasive sense that politicians are making things up as they go along.

…

Someone says of the press secretary: ‘She’s not just thinking inside the box. She’s built a box inside the box and she’s thinking inside that