Month: June 2003

My nominations for cover versions which are better than their originals. I’ll take some flack from one person on one anyway. It’s inspired by what is now quite a long thread on the V and there are a large number of songs in ther I want to check out. I shall have to fire up broadband tonight.

Guns N’Roses – Knockin on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan)
Nirvana – The Man who Sold the World (David Bowie)
The Fugees – Killing Me Softy (I don’t remember who did this first)
Sinéad O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U (Prince)
Metallica – Whiskey in The Jar (old folk song)
Marvin Gaye – I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Gladys Knight)
Pearl Jam – Last Kiss (I don’t remember who did this first)
Gary Jules Mad World (Tears for Fears)

Time.com have a good article about Radiohead and Hail to the Thief here

– http://www.innergeek.us/geek.html: 49.5069% – Super Geek
– Fuck it, I have no idea what the gecko problems is.
– x will mark the place.
– Radiohead themselves are unhappy with the lyrics situation, so hopefully this will make a difference and they can stay.
– Chess was really good yesterday. I won 3 of 4 games (we drew the fourth) but they were really good games, in particular the first.
– CIA says al Qaeda ready to use nukes. Hm this could be bad.
– There seems to have just been a massive explosion in Paris. It’s up on AOL news, but nowhere else on the web.
– I’m looking forward to the weekend. There is nothing doing at all and I want to take it easy. Maybe do some cleaning and sorting of stuff but nothing major.
– I’ve sent my sister in Tokyo the same package twice now and she’s not got it. I hate the postal service in this country. On that note, I have to send a parcel to a friend in the US. I’ll try and get to the post office for both of them tomorrow but I am notoriously shit at things like that.
– Should the angels call well it’s only then / I might pull in the reins
– I’ve sent my sister in Tokyo the same package twice now and she’s not got it. I hate the postal service in this country. On that note, I have to send a parcel to a friend in the US. I’ll try and get to the post office for both of them tomorrow but I am notoriously shit at things like that.
– Had I not got Glastonbury coming up in a few weeks I’d have booked a holiday today. BA has a one day only really cheap deal going to various places. One’s of note being San Diego and DC, but right now I can’t afford it.
– I’ve been using some Radiohead lyrics for the past few weeks from their latest album Hail To The Thief. One in particular stands out; Where I End And You You Begin. Thinking about it, there while there might be a gap between people, there are some people who have a gap between themselves and the real world. It’s really strange how people can seem to be so up in the air and not actually have any understanding of what is going on around them. There is a gap allright.
– four, five, six, seven, I’m up in the clouds
– It really doesn’t feel like it’s Wednesday already.
– Chess was worse today, 1 win, 1 loss and 1 draw. I also lost the game stupidly, I should have kicked Dave’s ass but I missed something and lost the game with one move. *sigh*
– Sun, sea, sand, sex and sangria. Now how does any of that sound anything other than great?
– Reread Batman: Year One last night, a good solid Batman read. This should be a movie

– Keanu Reeves is awesome.
– Been hanging around a message board I use to live on about 5 years ago. A friend pointed me at an interesting thread there a few weeks ago and I’ve dropped back on and off to watch the follow-up. I don’t understand why she never left it tho. I’ve replied to the two people there who I actually like and one complete and utter fuckwit this evening. Tis strange.
– I have no idea why but the current title of Sk8 J gets to me every time I see it: A Cute Girl Named Wednesday. Only connection I can think of is Christina Ricci who I’ve always had a thing for who played Wednesday in The Adams Family. Before anyone says anything, she’s the same age as me!
– I hate message boards which just shitty software to run on. I’d hang out at a couple more boards if they actually used some decent software and proper threading.
– hmm time for another change around here soonish I reckon.

there’s a gap in between

there’s a gap where we meet

where i end and you begin

– When I see the colour blue, do you see the colour blue?
– I have an urge to go and read some Alfred Bester after a thread on yet another forum mentioned them.
– IMDB is getting it’s usage from me today. I’m checking it out for about the 5th time now
– Westworld does not need to be re-made and it most certainly does not need to be remade with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Yul Brynner’s Gunslinger.
– iTunes 4 rocks. I was looking for some metal this afternoon through the network and I found something well I won’t say better, but certainly different. Paul Gross singing Ride Forever. If that means anything to you, well done. You have damn fine taste in music. It was of course the soundtrack to Due South, one of the best shows produced for TV. I do miss that show, it was really something special. So that was some listening for a while.
– “I may have taken Horse Tranqulizers recreationally, but I’ve never been rumoured to have been seen openly masturbating in a hotel bar”
– I was more tired than I thought last night. I was talking to my flatmate when at one stage I realised I had no idea what I was saying and no idea what the next word was, it was bad.
– I am reminded of a day in work where I suspect I was majorly hungover. I was sitting at my desk doing whatever I was doing and I wanted to listen to some music. So I fired up iTunes and put on my headphones. I don’t remember what I picked but something started to play. The only problem was I couldn’t hear anything. So I checked the connection, I checked the volume, I checked it was playing. All was fine. I restarted iTunes and checked everything again. Nothing. So I changed to my pc to make sure the headphones were ok. Same deal, everything looked fine but nothing was playing. I was getting quite frustrated at this stage, about 10 minutes have gone by and I’m looking at my computers confused. At this stage I realise that I have the headphones from my discman in my ears and of course I’ve not heard anything. One quick change later and everything is fine. Boy did I feel stupid that moment.
– God I love Google. After AIM and email it has to be my most used tool. It just rocks so very hard.
– The following are words. I don’t care what my spellchecker says. hungover, majorly, aswell, alot and many others which I use often.
– The opening drums on There There are really great.
– Short and sweet lately huh? I’ve a lot of stuff which I keep meaning to get down on paper but every time I get the chance to do so I can’t be bothered. So lots of snippets over the past few entries.
– I never said I was going to be consistant.
– I had planned on being in bed 2 hours ago.
– Yes the time stamps on posts like this are generally wrong, I’ll post one point and then add more to it.

– The beeb has a few bits and pieces streaming from the weekend. That’s my soundtrack for the afternoon.
– My keyboard is filthy. It’s been badly in need of cleaning for a long time but we don’t get our computers cleaned anymore. They use to be done once a week or so but it’s been a couple of years now since it was cleaned properly and pretty soon it’s going to develop sentience and enslave the human race.
– Loving Revelation Space, it’s very very readable. Some hardcore sci-fi puts me off when it takes too much effort to read (I’m lazy) but this one is really working.
– Borrowed American History X from one of the lads in work to watch this week.
– For the record, glasses are quite sexy.
– Going to have a bash at finishing Enter The Matrix with Ghost tonight, but will probably take me the rest of the week. Cut scenes are great. Adds quite a bit to the ending of the movie and the new Oracle.
– Motivation is a wonderful thing.
– Every now and again, it’s good to get over things.
– Catching up with old friends is a good thing.
– Oh yes, the new Metallica album; St Anger is a must buy this week.
– As is the Ani-Matrix
– Growing up is hard to do.
– I’ve just got to Number of the Beast which was how Maiden opened their set on Saturday night. Wow. Being there so close to the stage was so awesome.
– Turns out there were legal reasons that Download had to deny that Metallica would be playing. Something to do with their Reading contract. Might go check out Leeds if tickets are still available when I get paid after Glastonbury.
– I have some good (I hope) comics sitting at home to read. There is a new Bone book, so I might just have to start them again, the third volume of Promethea, which I’m a little wary of after hearing from a friend about it (speaking of…what happened to blogging more?) and I really want to get into Cerebus.
– Unsure about some stuff, not certain everything is going quite aswell as I thought and as usual it’s going to be my own stupid fault. Shocker as someone would say.
– Evanscene Bring me to Life…not sure about this. Heard it a couple of times today and am thinking it would have been good to check them out at the weekend and see what the other stuff was life but… *shrug*
– Stats are interesting…something strange about one in particular which I’m keeping an eye on.
– Easily the best Radiohead site on the net, Green Plastic has just been told to take down all their lyrics. I’ve looked lyrics up here more times than I can count so I’m quite annoyed and disapointed by this.

Anyway the weekend.

Saturday.
An early start. I met Fredrik in Kings Cross at 8:30 and we got our train no problem. One change later it’s just gone 10:30 and we have arrived at the nearest station. Jump on a shuttle bus and then, there we are. Eventually find the right place we should be going and set up the tent. This was amazingly easy and I am very impressed with the tent. So set up, put on lots of suntan lotion and head off to start the day by wandering around and seeing what there was to see. About an hour later we are close to dying from sun stroke and figure we need to spent some time inside. This works out well enough as Queen Andreena are due on in the Scuzz tent in about an hour and I want to see them. So we checked out the acts before them. So we do and there wasn’t anything special. Queen Andreena on the other hand gave a damn fine show, just a shame they only had a 30 minute set.

So after a quick stop to buy a bandanna to keep the worst of the sun off, we hit the main stage to check out Murderdolls. Hmm, not great not great at all. Wandered for another while before checking out Ministry who gave a really great set and I will be buying some of pretty soon. At this stage some food was in order before we hit the main stage for the one two of Marilyn Manson and Iron Maiden. Manson live was excellent, lots of stuff in the press about the stage show but overall I was really impressed and it’s going to tip me into buying some of his stuff. Then the main event: Iron Maiden. It was a greatest hits set, simple as that and it just rocked. They were on really good form and played for a couple of hours. It was a really great night.

Sleeping wasn’t so great, some little cu*t close by kept shouting out “Timmy” loudly every 5 minutes for about an hour. But the fucker would shut up every time someone went looking for him. Anyway didn’t get much sleep and wasn’t expecting to feel all that good on Sunday. As it turns out I was fine, felt grand.

Sunday was much quieter. Sat around listening to the main stage for a while. Left it when “up and coming” Darkness came out and were in fact pure shite. Hung out in the cafe inside for a while enjoying the AC and the darkness and then made sure we were at the Scuzz stage to see Apocalyptica. Having heard all the stuff during the week about Metallica playing the festival at some stage, it all pointed to the slot given to Apocalyptica on the Scuzz stage on Sunday afternoon. They had the longest set of the stage all weekend which for a band no-one had ever heard of was saying something. The other clue was in the program, they bio for Apocalyptica was a little tongue in cheek and mentioned cello rock prominently. There was nothing else on at the time we wanted to see so we wandered over to the second stage. On the way there was a noticeable increase in security and stewards on route, very noticeable. So we sorta looked at each other and walked faster. We get into the tent to find it fuller than it has been all weekend. Still mange to get to a decent spot close enough to the stage and then the chanting breaks out. And moments later Metallica come on stage. So we get two new songs and the rest are old time classics and it was fucking awesome. The sound was up to max and it was fucking loud. They played for about an hour and did one encore. There were no more than 4000 out of close on 50000 people there for it and turning around for a quick look just showed people running for the tent. Obviously enjoying themselves on stage, they went for Master of Puppets and telling the crowd to show Donnington that Metallica were there. Well, they fucking did and it fucking rocked.

Came out after they were done almost deaf. My ears are now still ringing. A break was called for. So we chilled at the tent for a while and then headed back to the main stage to check out Disturbed. Another band whose music I want to pick up soon. They were excellent live. The lead singer asked between songs who had just seen Metallica on the other stage as he had just come from there. Dotted around the grounds were people raising their fists in the air and shouting. For everyone else there were stunned looks. The looks on people’s faces were painful. At least 80% of the people there had no idea that one of the biggest metal bands in the world had just played one of their smallest shows in years only a few hundred feet away.

Anyway that was pretty much the end of the festival for us. We had to get a train back to London. So we went back and packed up the tent. We had planned on sitting nearby and listening for another while but the mother of all storms looked like it was about to arrive. So we jumped onto the first bus. As we did, it arrived. Thunder, sheet lightening and torrential rain. In the 20 minutes it took to drive back to the station some roads were flooded. I really don’t care now that I missed the rest of the festival.

We eventually got back to London at about 11:30 after a lightening strike by the rain tracks delayed all trains. Managed to make the very last tube and was home just after 12.

All in all an excellent weekend and a damn fine first festival for me. Two t-shirts this time around, one for Maiden and one for the festival.

– I’m not burnt I am glad to report, but I am a hell of a lot more tanned than I was.
– Had the day off to recover which was good. I needed to sleep late this morning.
– I beat Enter the Matrix as Niobe, now onto Ghost.
– The blogging should continue until morale improves.
– It really is amazing how different people are.
– Work in the morning, yay. I have to talk with my boss. That should be fun.
– I voted for option # 3. Should this be telling me something?
– Punk/Goth/Rock chicks rock.
– Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire.
– Neil Gaiman’s blog is easily my favourite read these days.
– and i find it kind of funny, i find it kind of sad, the dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had…
– So the title might be bust in Gecko browsers. Hmm strange, I shall have to check it out…tomorrow

Microsoft to abandon standalone IE

Back.
Maiden, Manson and yes Metallica. Fuckin A.

I’m filthy, deaf, hot and exhausted. I’m going to go and have a shower now.