I currently eating a breakfast consisting of meat-free sausages and reduced-salt, reduced sugar baked beans with a cup a decaffeinated tea with artificial sweetener. I can't help think that's one great big whacking metaphor for something or other.

Weeeeellllllllll! I bet that you look good on the dance floor dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984!

Been stuck on that song all week, needed to get it out of my system. Plus I needed an excuse to post a picture of some dancing robots.

Number One...

The Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Main song is blinding - no arguments there - I'm always right about these things! Second song kind of reminds me of the Streets, third song is a bit meh but top marks for naming it after a move from a Streetfighter character. Please be gentle with my bandwidth...

MP3: I bet that you look good on the dance floor

I'm not sure if it's the lack of caffeine, or a dodgy stomach that made me a slave to the smallest room in the house over the last few days, but I seem to have slipped into a proper sleeping pattern. After years of thinking that three o'clock in the morning was a perfectly reasonable time to go to sleep I've actually been going to sleep around midnight. Maybe I'm sick! Really really sick!

Anyway, small steps. I just have to sort out the mildly obsessive behaviour towards videogames, the credit card bill of DOOOOOM, go to the gym a bit more, cut out the ciggies, and maybe kickstart the old libido into doing something constructive, et voila! Not that I'm saying gaming is wrong, to be honest I'm inclined to belive it has far more benefits than slumping infront of the latest episode of Eastenders or The X-Factor every night, but when you find yourself looking at upcoming lists of games and mentally dividing them into games you'ld like to play and games you need to play - well, questions have to be asked.

So, enough analysing. For anyone keeping notes, I spent most of Saturday in a pub in South London watching Spurs against Man Utd. I'll say that it had character, can't quite put my finger on it, but there a few dodgy deals obviously going on before the match. Still after a few beers, shouting along with the Spurs fans and joining in the post match Sports Quiz it did turn out to be a great little venue to watch away games in. And it helped that we won a free round by coming up with the best team name: FLUPOCALYPSE NOW! (which I totally stole the name of... heh heh).

Finally, Greg Dulli has a new CD out. My thoughts about that are here.

soul music...

Greg Dulli - Amber Headlights
If there was one man in rock whose shows I wouldn't mind stepping into for a day it would surprise you to know that it wouldn't be one of the usual subjects such as Nine Inch Nail's El Rezzo, or the might Justin Broakrick of Jesu, it would have to be Greg Dulli. The man has soul, he sounds like he lives a life full of whiskey, cigarettes, sleazy hotel rooms and equally sleazy women - all the things that make up a proper rock and roll lifestyle - and damn, does he know how to sing. This album is made up of tracks written during a time when he was between his two bands The Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers. It was put on the shelf after a friend of his died, however he's recently revisited the songs and thankfully we now have this disk. As an introduction to his music it's a pretty good start, or even better if your in the mood for some TLC of the soul I think it's a pretty safe bet.

MP3: Cigarettes

I often find myself staring at this page really wishing I had something interesting to tell you. I don't know, like I was going off on some big adventure, or had met someone to drag me out of my geeky rut. To be able to say that: the constant meaningless quest to drag my credit card balance to even higher levels of reckless spending by buying as many CDs, games, DVDs and comic books as possible has taken a back seat in my life.

But alas it continues...

Shit, my first post for a week is developing into a horrifyingly self-loathing one, quick find an excuse for this.

Well, I've just been watching the Metallica film Some Kind of Monster, where they spend two hours basically moaning at each other, that has clearly had an effect on this post. And I'm working on Sharepoint at work. I hate it, nope - hate's not enough, I loathe it - incredibly annoying and awkward tool to work with.

The tone of this post has nothing to do with the music I've been listening to, that has been reasonably cheerful for a change...

heavy metal music...

The Young Gods - XXY
The Young Gods were a strange rock band in that despite sounding very guitar orientated at times they had no guitar player, instead the lineup was comprised of vocals, drums and a keyboard player. They also had a tendancy to experiment, dabbling in ambient-esque sounding music and even recording an album of early 20th century composer Kurt Weil's songs (Mack the Knife, that ring any bells?). They are also responsible, along with Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, for helping to drag me into electronic music when I was a young narrow minded head banger thanks to a 12" version of there Skinflowers EP. This is rather a good introduction to the band, there is a good cross section of there music and it comes with a bonus CD of remixes and rare songs.

MP3: Skinflowers

M.I.A. - Galang
Despite being a bit of a fan I still haven't got round to buying the M.I.A. album instead settling for buying lots of singles and the going for the download route. Anyway, here's a rerelease of Galang, picked this up as it has a fascinating remix from System of a Down's Serj Tankian. See what you make of it.

MP3: Galang (Serj Tankian Remix)

Cave In - Perfect Pitch Black
What a find! I was in the mood for metal at the time so went for these as I'd seen a couple of promising reviews, they are on Isis's label Hydrahead which was a sure sign I was in good company and I'm sure they have something to do with Old Man Gloom. Anyway, I was expecting a fairly dark and challenging CD, instead it's full on quality metal with hints of pop sensibilities. They seem to have two people handling vocal duties, one shouty and guttural, the other nice and melodic - there bassist can pull off a good old fashioned galloping riff when he needs to, and they know the value of a metallica-esque dual guitar break. Hands down one of the best Rock albums I've heard this year, I really struggled to choose a single song for you to listen to.

MP3: Down the Drain

So, today was John Peel Day and as such I feel it my duty to post some new music for you to listen to (Seriously, check out the Why? track, it's brilliant).

I'm not entirely sure I'm confortable with the official celebrations. OK, having plenty of gigs in his honour is no doubt a good thing, but what is this I hear about a charity single involving Elton John? Doesn't seem right to me really...

OK, that's all - if you're still bored this comic made with screenshots from the game Half Life 2 is quite good. Won't make a blind bit of sense if you haven't played the game though.

John Peel Day...

Celebration - S/T
I very rarely dive straight into a band without some sort of connection to another band I like. Usually I'll go via the 'band x is on the same label as band y so I must like them, or band x toured with band y - they can't be too different' route. In the case of Celebration I've gone via there singer Katrina Ford, she is credited as a singer on TV on the Radio's faultless Young Liars EP (according to Media Player anyway), I've since discovered that various member of TVotR make guest appearences so I can't go too wrong. Well it kind of worked, I quite like this album, but it's not up there with the aforementioned TV on the Radio's work - it's kind of like one of those early nineties 'Baggy' bands with each song driven by organ lines rather than guitars, but with an interesting Souxsie and the Banshees feel. The song I've gone for is one of the ones with one of the guys from TV on the Radio, about halfway through this gorgeous droning guitar sweeps in, I rather like that. Anyway, it's an interesting album.

MP3: Holiday

Why? - Elephant Eyelash
A confused album, it's from leftfield hip-hop label Anticon (although we really need to stop calling them a hip-hop label now), Media Player thinks it's folk, and the CD case has a sticker labelled 'file under rock'. I think the label is about right, it's still Why's surreal lyrics but with a slightly more personal slant, but's it's the tunes that make this album, there are some seriously catchy tunes on this disc. In fact if there is one problem it is with track 3, it's just too damn good! A real reach for the repeat button track, for your listening pleasure I give you said track.

MP3: Rubber Traits

OK, give me five minutes to metaphorically wrestle my Nintendo DS (the official darthphil.com game console of choice) from my own hands so I can stop playing games about weird fascist looking male cheerleaders, puppies and war and actually write something here.

I've got a fairly unhealthy symbiotic approach to music, when I'm miserable I listen to sad mournful music, and when I listen to miserable music I can get a bit moody and reflective. So the last couple of albums I've bought from Earth and Sunn0))) have not exactly been conductive to me being the proverbial bundle of joy. Luckily I think the next few albums on my hit list are a bit more cheerful. We start with the new Broken Social Scene album, a gleefully chaotic album which you can read about here, I've also got the new album from Why? which looks fun - more of which in a later post.

So, television. Whose watching the new series of Lost? If you are you may be interested in The Hanso Foundation, if you're in the UK and are being good and ignoring the torrent sites you may want to avoid it. I can't help but reveal one secret on the site: The Hanso Juxtapositional Eugenics Development Institute? J.E.D.I.? What do you reckon, light sabres and Jedi Knights? Almost as amusing as the rumour that Meg White was going to be Nine Inch Nails new drummer...

yay Canada!

Broken Social Scene - S/T
Well the new Broken Social Scene is here, whisked over by the good people at Fed Ex from the less civilized side of the Atlantic because I've got no idea when it's coming out over here. There last proper album was pretty much the perfect indie album so this has got quite the expectation to live up to. For there new album the Canadian collective has swelled there ranks to an impressive 17 full time members, this has lead to an album that is almost over brimming in ideas and sounds. I've seen some reviews imply that its a bit too chaotic at times, I can sort of see where they are coming from, they're wrong of course - I think it just gives the album a more charmingly looser feel that I like. Anyway, here's a song from the album - it's one of the stranger ones: constantly in danger of falling apart, wonderfully dreamy in places and with a lovely female vocal line that floats in and out of the song. Probably my favourite one on the album actually.

MP3: bandwitch

Broken Social Scene - to be you and me
And what's this? If you are quick you get a little bonus treat with the new Broken Social Scene album in the form of a nice little self contained EP. I could probably say it's a bit more experimental than the album it comes with, a couple of the tracks play around with drum machines and electronics more than the album - just as good though. The track I've chosen from this, like Bandwitch, is in danger of falling apart, but that's more because there are just so much going on in it. I love tracks like this, you can listen to it dozens of times and never quite hear all the parts on offer - plus it's noisy as fuck which is always a bonus!

MP3: canada vs america

You would have thought that a redesign of this website would have spurred me into action to write something vaguely interesting here wouldn't you? Apparently not it would seem.

A couple of sections have been updated, there are some pictures from last weekend up on the camera phone page. That weekend mainly involved alcohol and singing songs about Arsene Wenger's sexuality at the Spurs - Charlton game. I've also updated the CD page with the new album from Sunn0))) for all those connoisseurs of doom and despair out there.

I'll try to write something more diverting here soon...

the blackness!!! the blackness!

Sunn0))) - Black 1
I've talked about Sunn0))) before here, there connection to Earth, the way they have distilled the the idea of metal down to it's purest essence, so I won't go on about it again. Somehow they have managed to produce an album that is even more metal than anything they've done before but still keeping that sweet sweet subsonic drone. To get the authentic ambience of doom and dread they apparently went as far as recording vocalist Malefic whilst he was in a coffin in the back of a hearse, you can't get more real than that can you? Top album, 99% of the human race will hate it - they are wrong.

MP3: CandleGoat