Well I still appear to be 30, and my eyebrows and general mental health have survived the celebrations (better luck next time Matt!). Pictures can be found in the usual place - I've noticed that Vodafone have a page set up for my next phone (I doubt that link will work by the way), so hopefully it won't be too much longer until the picture page improves... there may even be video - ooh, fancy that!

I appear to be 30...

I'm am sure this is being reported on a few websites around the internet, but I thought I should add my voice. Today is the 10th anniversary of the death of Bill Hicks - if you don't know who he is may I suggest a quick visit to 'People Who Hate People' Party HQ and check out the biography, or pick up a copy of American Scream. Then you'll need to at least get hold of a copy of Rant in E Minor, and if you are feeling adventurous Arizona Bay. If you have time a visit to Sacred Cow Productions would not go amiss.



Hopefully after all that you'll be a fan. However, if not I hope you'll at least be able to appreciate that, even though he was 'just a comedian', he was able to articulate the rights and wrongs of our modern world, through his sheer rage, far better than anyone around today.





That is all...

Possibly the most moving interpretation of the true horror of war you'll ever witness, as perfomed by the cast of Super Mario Brothers: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. You'll need sound to get the full impact, as the music used in the soundtrack is truly inspired!



The last part is particularly harrowing...

Yeah, I know it's just trying to get me to spend my money on crappy snack food that pretends to be healthy but probably isn't - but it's funny...

I kind of got ahead of myself the other day by offering a fairly non-comital link to the Grey Tuesday website, but not explaining what it was all about. Well, sit yourself down and let Uncle Phil tell you all about it.



As you may be aware Jay-Z has recently 'retired' from hip-hop leaving behind a truly great (in my opinion anyway) album called The Black Album, at the same time he quitely released an acapella version of this album - pretty much inviting remixes.



You may also be aware of a group called The Beatles, they released something called The White album - apparenlty it did quite well, according to this article it sold almost 10 million copies.



Now enter DJ Dangermouse, taking The Beatles White album as a source for beats and loops, and adding Jay-Z's vocals from the Black album he's produced... wait for it! The Grey Album. A fantastic piece of production which despite the wide difference between the two sources works well - avid fans of each group may not completely approve of the result, but I think it's very respectful to both The Beatles and Jay-Z, the vocals and backing tracks are both treated with equal care and attention to detail.



The Grey Album was released in limited quantities, found it's way onto file-sharing networks for forward-thinking music fans to enjoy, and everyone was happy.



Now enter EMI, or as I prefer to refer to them: that bunch of twats EMI. They start slapping down record shops and forcing websites to remove the album for what seems to be no other reason than they can - dumb at the least, vindictive and wrong would be a more accurate description.



To completely deny access to a work of art (yes, I know thats a bit melodramatic, but technically that is what The Grey Album is) is one of the most ugly forms of cenorship there is. Also, from a business point of view this makes no sense: Beatles fan's and Jay-Z fans are likely to exist at opposite ends of the music purchasing spectrum, an album like this could serve to draw hip-hop fans into the Beatles music and people who normally like traditional Rock music into the world of hip-hop. If anything this could provide an increase in music sales - which is all the big record companies care about, they obviously don't care about the music...



Anyway, as I hope I've made clear, this album deserves the chance to be listened to. This is where Grey Tuesday comes in, to quote from there website:



Tuesday, February 24 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience: websites will post Danger Mouse's Grey Album on their site for 24 hours in protest of EMI's attempts to censor this work.



So, if you get chance head off over there and they should be able to point you in the direction of where it can be downloaded from...



/end rant

I've decided I need to start listening to some UK Garage, well to be honest I think what I'm after is called Grime, nice and dark - vaguely digital based hip-hop-esque music I guess. Trouble is other than Wiley and Dizzy Rascal I know absolutely fuck all about it, in fact by mentioning those two names I've admitted the extent of my ignorance since I think they're the first ones to get signed to major's...



So if anyone stumbles across this post who is a bit more knowledge on the subject, I'd appreciate a bit of guidance. Ta!

Shall we have a little football comment? Why not - it should generate some colourful postings in the comments section at the least. (I'm sure that picture will anyway - heh heh)



OK, speaking as a Leicester Fan - or should that be supporter? A while ago I mentioned there being a subtle yet important difference between 'ex' and 'non' smokers, I think there is a similar connection here, except this time I'm not really sure what the difference is - anyway... where was I? Oh yes, today's 4-4 thriller, coming back from 3-1 down at half time and ending with 10 men to boot - I guess I should be relatively happy.



Well, I'd be a lot happier if they hadn't let Spurs get the equaliser in the last minute! Grr...

mogwai's label...



Rock Action Presents Vol.1

Rock Action is the name of Mogwai's own record label in case you were wondering. The only familiar names on this sampler are Mogwai and Cex, both of these produce somewhat underwealming tunes - Cex's Destination: Sexy I've heard elsewhere, and the Mogwai tunes are pretty average. Not the best of starts, but the other artists on the CD more than make up for the asking price: Part Chimp live up to there name with some serious Rock! They remind me a bit of the mighty Fudgetunnel and Envy do a very passable Isis impression - it's not all hairy rock music though: the Jame Orr Complex and The Zephyrs calm things down nicely. Overall a nice compilation, well worth the asking price.

Grey Tuesday



...nuff said.

wire freebie...



Domino 04

Another month, another free CD from my Wire subscription - this one isn't too shabby at all, featuring artists who played at a festival in Belgium. Nice and varied, the 'big' name on it is Einstuerzende Neubauten, they've produced a suprisingly gentle piece given there industrial background (of course I could be horribly wrong here, I'm not that familiar with them), tracks from De Portables, lali Puna are Bohren & Der Club Of Gore deserve honourable mention. There's one by Somnabula which is a bit bizarre - sort of Marilyn Manson... but with some 80's rock singer instead of Manson.

Ten days to go until I'm 30, there's going to be some serious introspection and general moaning about how I've wasted my life for the next few days - you have been warned! In the meantime may I suggest listening to the new Probot album, it's great fun - as proved by this picture of Mr Grohl and his friends ;-)



Oh, and while I'm at it could we just have a moment of silence to mark the passing of one of the few decent things on television - Angel has been cancelled.

metal...



Probot

Hats off to Mr Dave Grohl here, he's obviously a true fan of Heavy Metal and has managed to produce a tribute that is completely respectful to the subject (take note The Darkness, this is how you do it). Twelve tracks of pure nostalgia featuring vocalists from Venom, Celtic Frost, Sepultura and the Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and some damn fine tunes. This will bring a smile to anyone around my age who went through a painful heavy metal phase during puberty.

I'm slowly beginning to realise that XML feeds are the way to go, so I think it's about time I advertised my site feed - there's a bewildering number of formats: RSS 0.91, RDF, Atom 0.3 all offering slightly different XML versions of the same source. I run this site using Blogger which offers an Atom enabled feed, annoyingly it doesn't work with my current RSS Reader, but I do use it to feed what I'm calling darthphil.mobile. Anyway, someone out there may find it of interest.

Proper album time...



Sophia - People Are Like Seasons

Christ! It's been almost two weeks since my last CD - although I've been downloading some interesting stuff recently, like a certain grey album, which is a teensy weeny bit illegal - but very good. Anyway it's nice to come back to something a bit special.



Now if you don't know about Sophia I suggest you point your browser to the excellent www.sophiamusic.net for some background information, I won't repeat the band's history here, but suffice to say this is one band whose emotional depth has been well and truly earned.



But what about the music? Well, this isn't one of my difficult albums - I can't think of a reason why anyone couldn't enjoy this, unless they're completely tone-deaf... or just deaf I guess. As pointed out elsewhere, the first track 'Oh My Love' could (and damn well should!) cause some serious commercial damage, given a suitably forward thinking radio station - well, 'Mad World' was the Christmas number one in the UK so you never know. 'Fool' is subtley threatening, 'If a change is gonna come...' stomps alongs with the best of them, 'Darkness (another shade in your black)' kind of goes all industrial in a post-shoe gazing Curve way, and 'Desert Song No.2' well... I really wish I could do justice to this song, but I'm not a proper writer, I'm just a slightly maudlin, videogame-playing, over-drinking ex-smoker who is egotistical enough to run a website named after himself... I can just bow down in awe! Especially the last 90 seconds which I can but describe as 'glorious'.



Anyway as I said on the front page: Buy it!



Buy it, buy it, buy it!

OK, see that picture on the left - that's the new Sophia album - drop everything and buy it now, reaffirm my belief in the good of the human spirit.



Seriously, you need to own this album, and it's not just me who says that:



"I simply can't stress enough how much you should go out and buy this record. You'll be playing it over and over again and wondering why it isn't number one already... So get it, you will love it, I have said enough." The Sunday Telegraph



"Listening to this record recalls a lyric by Marillion of all people, who once said: "Everybody knows we live in a world where they give bad names to beautiful things. Everybody knows that we live in a world where we don't give beautiful things a second glance." People Are Like Seasons is a beautiful album - let's not make these mistakes where it's concerned." www.musicomh.com



You can find plenty of other reviews over here.



If you want to know what I think about it have a click over here.

Today i have mainly been driving too fast - i wonder why?

Right, since I have a website with the word "Darth" in the title it's not unreasonable to assume I'm a Star Wars fan - and as such I have an opinion an the recent announcement of the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD.



Like many fans I have conflicting opinions: I'm happy that the films I love are finally being released on DVD, but slightly disappointed with the manner of the release. For one, the trilogy is being release as a box set with one disc of extras - ok I know the films should stand on there own, but the first three Star Wars films are a big part of cinematic history, they've spawned countless books, comics, games and toys - having one disc of extras just doesn't seem enough. Especially since the first two DVD releases of the new Star Wars films both come with there own disc of extras.



Then there is the fact that the original versions of the film are not going to be released - it's almost like George Lucas doesn't want to acknowledge they exist. It just seems a bit sad to me, I'm very nostalgic about those films: I want my non-cgi special effects shots back, and I want Han to shoot first damn it!



Anyway, if you feel at all bothered about it click the link to sign a petition - if anything it does help release a bit of tension.



In other news last night saw the annual trip to Guildford to celebrate Matt and Joe's birthday - not much to report other than: it was fun, a frankly heroic amount of alcohol was drunk and I found a really good way to piss off a bouncer (try to take pictures of the stupid cunt after he has tried to chuck two of your friends out for absolutely no reason other than drinking a bit too much alcohol, in case you are wondering - works like magic!).

I am drunk, and posting from my mobile....

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Motorcyclist hit by $600,000

I am currently experimenting with the whole idea of images in blog entries, it seems to be the way to go....



In other experimental news I've also done something with the xml feed that Blogger can create. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you darthphil.mobile - just point your WAP enabled phone at http://winksite.com/darthphil/mobile and you should be presented with a cut down version of this site and *gasp* a guestbook! There may be extra stuff depending on whether I go to town on the admin side of things.





I completely stole the idea from Warren Ellis - who happens to be using it properly with his WAP short story site.



Oh, and I haven't smoked for a month - where is my prize you fuckers!

The Pixies are officially back!

Film recommendation time: Lost in Transalation, an absolutely wonderful little film about two people falling for each other in the strange little world that is Tokyo, possibliy Bill Murray's most moving and powerful performance since Ghostbusters.

Kid606 and Chums, again...



Paws Across The World 2003

Can't quite work out the track listing here: 2 Kid606 tracks, 2 DJ /Rupture tracks, 3 Dwayne Sodahberk tracks, then there are 15 bonus tracks... eh? Anyway, the Kid606 ones are OK if a bit on the throw away side, DJ /Rupture does the strangest version of the theme from Cheers you'll ever here and Dwayne Sodahberk does some quite nice tunes - one involving a Teddybear. The cool stuff is in the bonus tracks: Soundmurderer does an excellent old skool mashup, Donna Summer (no not that one) does a weird disco metal thing, and this bloke called Puzzleweazel does the most hyperactive Aphex Twin impression you'll ever here. All in all, good...

It's my birthday on the 28th of this month, I will be 30.



/reaches for large drink, which isn't there. Panic starts to settle in.



I need some suggestions for something to do, any ideas?

Every so often I get a craving for commercial pop music, well I say craving - but that's not right, what I mean is every so often a pop tune or act comes along that manages to infiltrate my carefully constructed defense of avant-hip hop electro-noodling bollocks. T.a.t.u. managed it with there album, Beyonce shook her oh so bootylicious...erm, booty and made me go weak at the knees with Crazy in Love, hell even Justin Timberlake has got through with what is in my opinion one of the best break up tunes ever (Cry me a River in case you are wondering).



Anyway, I've got a new one for the list - brace yourself...



I think the new Britney Spears single is fucking great!!!



There I've said it - I feel better now. Yes, I'm well aware that the video has young Britney half naked, but let's be honest she's pretty much always half naked, so no suprise there. No, it's the song that does it for me: cool strings, not too many of the weird nasal noises she normally makes - in fact she pretty much sings it straight, I'll even forgive the vocoder effect, and the beat is ace - screaming out for a really hardcore ragga remix.

Random Monday Afternoon Music...



UNKLE - WWIII: UNKLE vs UNKLE

Bit of an old skool vs new skool thing here: 2 discs, the first is a mix from an UNKLE/James Lavelle stint at Fabric which sounds like it was made around the same time as the Never Never Land album, pretty good - like the 2 previous UNKLE/UnkleSounds (or whatever these damn things are called) mixes there's a lot of Queens Of The Stone Age and Ian Brown here. The second disc is a live set with James Lavelle and the Scratch Perverts, basically it's a multi-deck remix of the first UNKLE album. Pretty good compilation all round.

I've been poking around the log files for this site and it seems that a couple of people have found this site doing searches for mobile phones - they may be interested in what is winning the race to be my next phone: the Sharp GX-30, which looks like it is based on the Japanese Sharp J-SH53 phone.



Very nice screen, a proper camera and bluetooth - all of the major requirements for my next phone. You can also make phonecalls on it apparently, which is nice...

Some nights to put in your diaries:



22nd February

Aesop Rock & C-Rayz Walz

I've been listening to a lot of Aesop Rock recently and have decided he's the proverbial lyrical genius, but it's a Sunday night dammit!!!



11th March

Soundclash: Asian Dub Sound System And The Bug

I'd love to see The Bug live - but god knows how it will work in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.



12th March

London Sinfonietta, Squarepusher, Jamie Lidell

Maybe a bit too much culture for a Friday night?



30th March

Sophia

At the Islington Academy this time.



...if I make it to two out of these I'll be fairly happy.