Capsule @ Hare and Hounds

I probably shouldn't have gone out last night, I am skint don't get paid for a few days was slightly hungover after swapping a healthy activity for an unhealthy on the previous evening. I also was knackered after actually spending the day working (Gaz assured me that it would make the day go faster but he was wrong). I am not however particularly strong willed when it comes to going out so bought meself a ticket and thought what the hell.

First act Theo used live looping to layer guitar sounds and then would jump onto the drums and bash out complex rhythms into the mix with an intensity that I've not seen in some time. It takes the one man band concept to another level.

Next up was crazy free jazz freek out dance band Zun Zun Egui, on paper they sound like everything I would avoid like the plague but they were brilliant. Each song started off slowly as some horrible jazz number and built up into Damo Suzuki-like krautrock workout and went through various different modes from afro to strange oriental nosies. I thought they were ace. So much so that I bought the CD which is something I rarely do at gigs. Not that I've listened to yet.

Wire magazine recently complained about Fuck Buttons using more commercial sounds but I think they are all the better for it, strange hearing euphoric dance noises in a rammed room on a Tuesday night.

Tonight was supposed to be my night off the sauce. Unfortunately I got invited to the pub.

Néboa

One of the best things that I saw at Sonar and he is giving away his album for free too.

http://virb.com/neboa

CDs Wot I've Got On My Desk

I've got quite a few CDs on my desk I should probably take some of them home.

Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective
Fleet Foxed - Fleet Foxes
Distance to Technoland 2 - Various Artists
Alas I Cannot Swim - Laura Marling
Mixmag Jun 09 Electro Techno Thunder - Boys Noize
First Days of Spring - Noah and the Whale
Daybreaker - Beth Orton
The Outsider - DJ Shadow
Mixmag Sep 09 Bestival - Rob Da Bank
Re-Animations Vol 1 - Beyond the Wizards Sleeve
Sci.Fi.Hi.Fi Vol 2 - Luciano
Fabric 27 - Mathhew Dear as Audion
What the Humans Eat - Willy Mason
Hard Island - Nathan Fake
Avalon Los Angeles - Sasha
Bloc Mix - Rusko
Fabric 18 - M.A.N.D.Y.
Jam J - James Vs Sabres of Paradise
The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails
Some Cities - Doves
Supernature - Goldfrapp
Nocturnal Frequencies Anthology - Danny Howells
Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

Uneasy Sleep

Monday I thought I was dying after three days of drinking far too much and watching dodgy folk music and staying out too late trying to empty barrels of real ale in after parties. Hungover wasn't the word, headache, gut ache, chest pains, nausea all added up for a gloriously productive full day of work. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to drag my fat arse out of bed in the first place.

Couldn't sleep that night kept waking up every fifteen minutes jumping out of uneasy dreams with horrible twinges and muscle spasms.

Obviously I didn't want to get out of bed the following morning...still felt pretty awful. Couldn't concentrate. Considered enrolling on a Spanish course but because none of them start until eight o'clock in the evening thought that there was bugger all chance of me actually going to it. Mandarin, Korean and Russian all start at 6.30 so maybe I'll enrol on one of them next week.

Decided to go to the quiz at the last minute, had four beers and was glad that we lost because inevitably that would have meant four more. Couldn't sleep again.

Spent the day pointlessly arguing over nothing with Dan and Joe on the Interweb when I should have been working. The Internet usage report for the previous couple of months came in, I was sixth with about 5% of the total usage down somewhat on the previous time. Didn't stop me posting another million posts...

Watched the soccerball, shooting stars, newsnight, the wire and some all female poker match where nobody gambled even more dull than it normally is and thought it might send me to sleep, it didn't.

I actually did some work yesterday and that was after a two pint two hour all you can eat leaving lunch. Suprised myself.

Got home about six, mercilessly killed people on GTA4 for about two hours and then went to bed in boredom. Slept mostly soundly for over 12 hours, I did wake up and without having a clue where I was or what time it was before looking out of the window and then going back to sleep.

Broken Embraces

I went to see Broken Embraces last night. I think sometimes Penelope Cruz looks stunning other times she looks like a funny little duck.

The film was OK, I thought it would be more visually stunning given that it's a film about film and that's why I thought I'd go see it in the cinema. It was pretty enough but it just wasn't quite what I was expecting I don't think and I'm not sure whether the film within a film thing worked as well as it could have done.

Tenerife and it's volcanic terrain looks dead strange, I'm not sure when they filmed it but it looks so cold and miserable and windy. There was a great peice of music, a solo singer, I think singing in English but it could have been Spanish, playing as they swept over the barren landscape, love to know who it was.

The queue for the cinema was out the door and yet there were only about seven people watching the film, not much call for a subtitled Spanish film about a film director coming to terms with the loss of his sight and love I don't suppose, people like big explosions and flashy lights.

A List.

Here is a list of things that I've apparently looked up in Wikipedia whilst at work in the last couple of weeks.

1984
Armin Van Buuren
Athens
Back to the Planet
Binary Space Partitioning
Bow Saws
Boyer-Watson Algorithm
Coming Up For Air
Delauney Triangulation
Divide and Conquer Algorithm
Dubonney
Estimation Theory
Expectation Maximisation Algorithm
Festivals
Fleet Foxes
Fortunes Algorithm
Galileo Galilei
Garden Festival
Getting Things Done
Grand Theft Auto 4
Internet Addiction
Judge Dread
Julia (1984)
Laura Marling
Legal Drinking Age in Europe
Music of California
Noah and the Whale
Nottingham
Oceania
Peaceful,the World Lays Me Down
Plot Generator
Procrastination
Saw
Senser
Susanna Hamilton
Telescope
The Napoleon of Notting Hill
The Squid and the Whale
Triangulation
Voronoi Diagrams
Yvonne Mitchell

Broken Body

I finished the weekend feeling like I've not stopped boozing for months and months, Friday night was a bog standard leaving do stroke pay day effort, too many beers in the shakespeare followed by too many more elsewhere (this time the Actess and Bishop) followed by a drunken stumble either home or (rarely) into a club for more booze.

Saturday was a barbeque day at Paul and Kerri's where again I pushed the boat out again somewhat on the drinking front even to the point of considering a two years out of date bottle of Peroni. I wasn't hungover on Sunday at all but it was the most miserable day, raining, cloudy, dark, boring.

Then on Monday I ended up back in the pub, this time at the Coach and Horses for a pig roast. I was quite pissed after about six pints and one pig sandwich but that didn't stop me from carrying on drinking about another six more.

My body is telling me to have a break...