r.i.p. RTX

okay, so Royal Trux died in 2001 (they were torn apart by terrorism whilst attempting a paper round --when they heard the news of 9/11 they threw the papers down and called it quits -- a lie -- but incidentally this is what happened to me on 9/11)

have I lost you yet?

--interestingly i typed 'have I love you' then & backspaced and typed in 'lost'. food for thought.

Royal Trux brought us such salty alty epics as Witch's Tit, and brought home the politically sound idea of Heroin Chic in the early 90s (courtesy of the deliciously tetchy and very beautiful Jennifer Herrema [left]). there's something very weird and parallel to The Now in Royal Trux's's's's's shtick (if i force myself to believe this is true) :::: they could work now in a very obvious way in terms of the Duo Obsession that is determined to stay (White Stripes then Kills then Crystal Castles then the Knife then uh... Bondage Fairies?), the trashy gumfy pixoid percussion, the toss-the-apple-in-the-backyard riffs, as well as Herrema's boyish dungaree vocals. theres a hell of a lot of fun in RTX, especially if youre feeling the digging up the witty sleaze trend (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds por ejemplo). anyway, uh...

I love you!

>.andy apples

THA DARRKK MUTHER FUCKINN KNIGHT!!!!!1111oneoneone

crayze times. this fucking fool wearing the batsuit backwards is my dead nan's racist cat. he's a wanker, but at LEAST he got well into the latest Batman Bonanza -- Los Darkos Knightos, which is criminally boom ting. search anywhere on google's face and you'll find reams of praise for Ledger's power performance of complete 100% joker doom. it's enough to start a trend of murky Old Greg seaweed hair, chelsea smiles and Afleck's Palace cheapazoid purple suits covered in Joker cum.

really the only prob with the film is that in comparison to Ledger's sheer delicious bastardness, everyone ends up looking a bit... sane? with 2-face being impressively shitly played by ""aaron eckhart"", whoever the FUCK that is, who's acting is limited to 2 facial expressions (...figures). Bale's batman is noteable for its sheer bruteness (throwing some G off a roof so it shatters his

legs was a bit ow), and his pimpy, crow's-feeted

Bruce Wayne does the job, but NOTHING in the film can or could match the sheer reality and relevance of the Joker.

you watch Ledger's Joker as one of his cronies, nodding along and laughing at any cool-sick joke he mutters, completely fucking convinced. in fact (although i do generally relate more to villains than heroes, as everyone that's cool does) he almost makes terrorism seem like a good idea. the anarchy of the Joker in TDK is very very fucking punk thank you very much, utterly violent (probably the most arousingly vicious 12A i've ever seen), yet he still manages to play Jester also, carrying the bulk of the laughs throughout the entire film. see it, it's sick. [4*'s] & in short, dont mix drink and pills if you're this talented.

zm

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no age

no age are fucking rad!

NO WAY!

dude, total fucking way dude -- they're fucking rad!

TOTALLY NOT POSSIBLE!

totally fucking possible dude!

HOW SO?

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

imagine if Sub Pop gave birth to a whole new mofoing genre in which California grew balls again, shed them, and acted dope as a burnt old page of Kurt Cobain's journals, which still had a bit of mexican black tar smack smudged on it, and smelt of old bullets?

OK -- FAIR DEWS -- THAS CUEL MON

but THEN, it was all new and twisted and sonic youth after they were forced to live in the canadian woods and then wore plaid ironically, but BETTER, because it was weird and DIY and made sense, but not TOO MUCH sense?

well. that's slightly like what No Age are like. they are from my current favourite tradition, which is? ----- that's right, the forthcoming, no-way-of-escaping it art/toss/noise-punk movement! (4th edition) break your fucking skateboard over your head, piss all over your thrift store pants and sniff some sharpies because California wants you to be a fucking no good bitch-punk again! now all we need is David Cameron in power being a cunt so we can have Brit Punk back like cool losers. YESYES

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1-800-zombie

today's post is dedicated to the families that have to put up with the delightfully chunky girls of 1-800-zombie ---- 2 texan mcdonald's bothering 8-bitters that really know the meaning of hyper-supreme-anti-fascist-niké-niké-niké-nihilistic-21st-century dadaism.

DICK'EAD SAYZ WOT?

okay, well. it's not all that compleks. but they are an unlikely happening -- 2 girls that tread the basically nonexistent line between Dreamburger failure-music and listenable tetrahedron-pop.


--- YOWZER

bye fer now!
[dragonz den 4EVA]
Andre

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long lost cousin in a trash can records

what's the grossest thing you can think of? no really, just out of interest. what's the grossest thing you can think of. i think the grossest thing i can think of is a baby covered in pus and shit looking up at you after you just threw it out of a 3 storey window, and it's your baby and it's screaming out 'help me? help me?' even though it's only 2.

maybe that's just terrible. maybe it's erotic. one thing that is definitely terrible, erotic and gross is the liner notes for the Pixies' 'Trompe Le Monde' which look like Cindy Sherman spat out a just-given-up-smoking load of phlegm on a taxidermist's unwashed hands, which were then washed by the spit. but it's a great, and often forgotten album when compared to Doolittle and Surfer Rosa. REMEMBER IT.

speaking of Pixies, I would shag Kim Deal, even now. even though she looks like she has given birth out of her face for the last 2 decades and has mild stage 2 gonorreah. someone i wouldnt shag is Elizabeth Sharp (above) from Ill Ease who looks okay playing drums with her hair in her face, but has hairy arms and looks like someone Carol Ann Duffy would go for. but she makes frickin boom ting music mate, and thats what counts. i'd definitely go on a date with her if she paid for everything. her lost gem is her debut album 'The Exorcist'. the cool thing about Elizabeth Sharp is, well actually theres 3 things -- No1. she is more known for her photography than her music (which i dont have to tell you is very punk) No2. she can't play drums deliberately (punk-0!) No3. she does that thing when she plays live (because she's a 1 woman band, oh yes) where you loop different riffs on each instrument and you look like a magic maker weaving the different bits of the songs like some techno octopus of sheer insanity. anyway, the Exorcist -- REMEMBER IT.

and finally, another lost gem, and another lady-based band (because i'm a feminist, all yous bitches) is Broadcast, who's 2005 deal Tender Buttons (click this one def) are one for all you 8-bit maniacs that think in pixels, and have your homepage set to Warp records (although you definitely wouldve heard of them). if you got a bit too overexcited in the whole 8bitpeoples madness, pressing 2 gameboys up to each ear, praying for satisfaction, they are the perfect comedown band, blending nice girl over the road indie songwriting with bitcrushed gooseing about. REMEMBER IT.


HAppy weekend!
xAndre3000

baptism - a dissection

i always get the same, evil feeling going to see crystal castles live. it's something like meeting an old girlfriend, and being pleased but amazingly apprehensive, nervous even, happy but annoyed at yourself. 1st time i heard 'baptism' i was pissed in the taxi and i actually forgot who we were going to see, remembering with a sharp stab. it was fucking gorgeous, fucking rotten.

people think it's a cliché to invest anything in a band, to actually care about them, but despite everything, castles are the one band that mean it, but mean it just the right amount. they are brother and sister in incest -- symmetrical, parallel, complete opposites. the ultimate love or hate band. thieves, artists, ex-community service junk collectors, their sound, because that is the most important thing they have brought, really is the New One. you've waited long enough.

anyway. 'baptism' is a shweet track for several reasons. it's got the trippy skipping-rope music box blip-verse of 'Air War', and then from nowhere a heavy-set fuck trance chorus of absolute pulverisation. Glass' lyrics are the kind of thing you'd find on the prettiest and you always knew most talented girl in class' suicide note: "hold my head underwater/ do my best for my father", she orgasms (really fuckin Freudian, crystal castles lyrics), and then domestic/religious observations "touching in the bath / a rhythm saved for last". Kath claims that he was attracted to Alice as a vocalist because he was "looking for a poet", and it's clear what he saw in 14-year-old Alice's word talent (my favourite lyrics are from Mother Knows Best -


feel her tight between my thighs
from across the football field
its victory that i smell inside
and the smell contains no guilt

h e r p e s i can smell them through her dress
my daddy's wrong mother knows best

c c c is for cunt theres a sickness inside that i need to harvest
broken tramp have you seen her , i tried to love but now ill beat her

h e r p e s i can smell them through her dress
your daddy's wrong mother knows best
she's the one who brings me to life,
when i stab her with my hunting knife
broken tramp have you seen her ,
i tried to love but now i've beat her)


-- Glass' sense of simple, nihilist, narcissist highschool virgin suicide cooldark sex is another layer dats reely sexy when you uncover it.

I like the idea that Ethan is the brains and Alice is the brawn. Ethan is silent and Alice is vocal, but because Alice is vocal she is silent in interviews because she is a dancer, she is Art and Ethan is an accountant, talking Business. Alice is the face of the band, she is the visual and Ethan is the sound, hooded over. in fact, the idea of crystal castles dualism is so attractive it almost puts me off bands with more than 2 members.

anyway, that is not techinically true, because monsieur drummer (although i've heard they have many) is a fundemental part of the live castles sound. tracks like 'baptism' really benifit from live backing, as does the entire performance, even years and years ago when i saw castles in Stoke (because they go EVERYWHERE), in the dingy, sticky black land of the Underground, it was clear that seeing castles live is nothing like listening to them with headphones. for starters theres the STROBES of DOOM, which (because they kept them on the entire show, Alice thrusting the light into peoples faces, at one point smashing some fat guy who was getting a little too fresh with the light itself) actually give a really strange inebriated sense of drugginess if the place is dark enough.

so, now you know a little more about Crystal Castles. next week your mum.

Xndrxw

7 most disappointing things of the noughties

inject some yaba, down a pint of strongbow and ketamine, sit the fuck down and let me tell you how shit everything is

(figuratively speaking) :::::

No7. 7/7 -- well it wasnt exactly 9/11 was it?*

No6. the Dreamcast -- ok, if youre someone that has to click on every single link in blogs (and youre a complete pedant) youll see that the dreamcast came out in 1999, congratulations, fuck off. i actually loved the dreamcast, it was a beautiful console. but it died, and was buried in a cute lil grave next to sega.

No5. the Strokes '1st Impresions' -- the worst thing in the world is when bands realise other current bands, and, like bad, imagined relationships, try and forge some kind of compromise. '1st impressions' is disappointing on multiple levels -- Juicebox sounds like a bassy load of tit inspired by Johnny Borrel's mum's opinion on music, Vision of Division sounds like "a rock song", and about 80% of the tracks urge the listener to sigh sadly as soon as they begin. obviously, there are SOME good tracks, otherwise it wouldnt be the Strokes, but as Julian says in the droll Ask Me Anything, they have nothing to say. truly a burning out album.

No4. Skins -- ah, Skins. Skins was like the best, most colourful, imaginative wank ever, before I came. when I finally did come (exactly when the 2nd series started) i felt frankly dirty. frankly ashamed. i wore a hair shirt for some months, and a chastity belt on my thigh. the fact is that Skins (esp. series 2) is lazy writing, pubey acting and patronisingly put together. its a program designed to 'shut out adults', so the kids can learn about dubstep and crack (i have no beef with dubstep or crack btw), sandwiched inbetween a useless, profoundly self-conscious, ignorantly plotted cast of inaccurate stereotypes, dancing in a borderline racist (all black characters MUST talk permanently in jafaican, because that is just what they do in contemporary britain, give me a fucking break) load of old fuck.

No3. Klaxons 'Myths' -- pleh. absolutely pleh. fuck off. the album sounds like a reverby bath in an invented joke (being the one they actually DID invent - New Rave™). absolutely nowt to get excited about, because New Rave™ ended up being nothing about these kids - it was about 364 cmyk colours per outfit and any samples/shit you could grab from a 90s bargain basket (fair enough) - not about what these funky pricks made (annoying 'cheeky' basslines with stupid occasional Musey pianos and general stadium gumfy fuck off fuck off). Klaxons didnt save anyone with their Mercury Prize-pleased cake-eating, and now that theyve arrogantly fucked off for ages like 'a big band' should, i just hope their fans arent there when they get back. (they will be)

No2. Libertines -- a brilliant band. part of the horror of the Libertines is their stunningly depressing fall from grace. for a while it seemed that everything they were was building up to a true British moment in musical history, they were the Sex Pistols, they were the Beatles, blah blah blah. DOOM is what happened. 21st Century DOOM. doherty is now the ultimate, clinging background loser of glossy mags, the person we still pretend is a big deal, or worth watching as he comes out of prison. as genius (say what you like) as he and his band once were, he is in hell now, and he wont come out until he Britney Spazzes out of there.

No1. Jack Black -- i knew there was something suspect about Kung Fu Panda. the trailers for this piece of shit have been annoying me for some time, not least because of the 'hur hur, panda dat does kung fu innit' marketing aspect of the piece of cunt, but the cunt himself behind the motherfucking panda, Jack 'It's okay to be fat!' Black. RRRROCKSTAR. Black's humour is embarassing timewarped fucking uncle that just about grasped irony the other day, and realised it could save his pitiful life. what is so sublimely disappointing about the boy is how dismal he makes music sound -- School of Rock (and the rest)'s -- 'ROCK can SAVE THE FREAKIN WORLD' narrow-minded naivety is amazingly unpleasant. if Black's movies were about total musical failure, the irony would work, but as it happens, THINGS TURN OUT A-OK in his loudmouthed, doublechinned, disparate bubble of amazingly unfunny simpleton cancer.

FIN



*i have nothing but sympathy for the victims and anyone that was mildly flustered by 7/7

xAndy!

aesthetiksch

in 2008...

its insanely easy to become the best band in the world ever. literally the ONLY shitting thing in the world that matters is aesthetics.

LET ME EXPLAIN

music is advertising, but as all you girls know, Andy Warhol taught us that advertising is OK, so dont start crying thrrough your tired bloodshot marxist eyes yet. aesthetics applies to all aspects of a band (or music artist). ironically, even though no one has owned a cd in 5 years, artwork, appearance of a band, posters, photography, and visuals are pretty much 1/2 the deal. the music itself is part of the band's aesthetic, but even your dead cousin could tell you that when you 1st hear about a band, you are weighing up all aspects of them as a product, if only subconsciously.

00's bands & artists with notable aesthetics include:

The Strokes///////////////// these snotty NYC middle-class house party hounds got it super right. ironic minimalist nihilistic velvet garage rock. it's everywhere from the fact they have their producer and manager in the band photoshoots in the liner notes (that's the 00's armoured we-dont-mean-anything irony there) to the photography of the band - nonchalant monochrome blah, the sexy Is This It cover (the UK edition, natch), that peachy white arse with the S&M biker glove. it made hella sense, basically, and thats not mentioning the Bret Easton Ellis lyrics of Julian Casablancas, the endless, endless quaver patterns in every song (minimal noughties), yet this overwhelming sense that it shouldve been done before.

Kanye West////////////// arguably mainstream hip hop's ultimate, tireless reinventor (even though he sucks pretty huge balls now, how many ideas would you like from Ed Banger records this time Mr. West?), Kanye West's College Dropout was a clearly-defined new direction for the genre. and it was all thanks to the bear.. (?). West's early work was all about joyful, tongue-in-cheek wit combined with fit production and 'the thing everyone does in hip hop', being insanely high PITCH SHIFTED vocals! how stupid did that sound when you 1st heard it! (Through the Wire) but now, of course, stanndard.

Crystal Castles/////////// pretty much the ultimate aesthetic of the decade (ahem - the forward slashes?). I discovered this band way before you did and that makes me pretty happy, downloading poorly mixed versions of xxzxczx me (that was before they respelt it kid) about 4 years ago with Mp3 Gopher to satisfy my utter lust. Castles are at the stage now where pretty much anything they say goes. Castles have a picture of a bluebird on their MySpace? 'wow, arent bluebirds amazingly cool' ---- vid of Alice wearing a Vader t-shirt on youtube? 'i'm totally getting my star wars figures out tonight'. its pretty incredible really - they live on their own island completely - with taxidermy, thrift store synths, battered leather jackets, sheer punk sexuality, darkness, apathy, and as many stolen 8-bit samples as they like (and that, is exactly the point - they get away with anything). i plan to write a pretty dick-sucky, tit-licky post about their unreleased track 'Baptism' soon so stay tuned.

Kap Bambino///////////// one of the most exciting French acts of the moment, the hyperactively red haired, hoodied combo of sheer industrial doom. imagine every bassline from Parisian new dance put through one of Justice's compressors with a gorgeous slut on dist vox and youre basically there. I've been raving about them for a while, but perhaps they're too much for some. they're aesthetic is much like their predominant sound - contained chaos - their webpages covered in delicately scratchy drawings and montages.

Late of the Pier//////////// 1st Brit act in this list (i felt i had to boost numers jokes), LOTP have an astonishingly recognisable shtick, kind of Klaxons but not cunts shot through a visually autechre love for Gary Numan. I want to like them, haven't got round to it. (i wont)

These New Puritans//////////// are wannabe-chemists with Ian Curtis' old phonenumber and a weird tendency to run parallel with some really strange trends, yet tie it all together with gold and black string. for example, Swords of Truth begins sounding like some lost M.I.A. song and then becomes a bit BoNo Must Die-ish with weak boy vox, before J.B. sings '60 seconds', but it really sounds like a Missy Elliot song, but really not. they modelled for Dior (or some shit, cant really remember, you dont mind) even though they are supremely geek chic 4000, but that just made me like them more.

Those Dancing Days////////// i cant believe im writing this but i have an extremely guilty pleasure for these at the moment. : S x 4892. its something about that ice-cream truck organ and the hummable, sunwashed choruses. im not a paedophile. yet. anyway, TDD's aesthetic is simple as they are really - cutesy cutesy cutesy Swedes having cute fun alot alot.

Panda Bear/////////////// the actual brilliance. potuguese sun, sand, Beach Boys, looking after your newborn daughter, looking after your new fashion designer wife, paddling pools, a lot of animals, genuine courage. its an amazing aesthetic that Noah Lennox has, and perhaps because his aesthetic is basically his life, as pure as he can express it.

THE END

Andrew