Public Enemy No. 1

I was going to post the original Crass version of Do The Owe Us A Living, but, controversial as it may be, I actually prefer the Jeffrey Lewis version. Here's a montage of Jeff and co. playing a selection of tracks from 12 Crass Songs:



And here also is something that I'm pretty surprised I haven't posted before, because it's excellent:



Jeff provides pretty convincing evidence that America is the original home of punk, although I suppose I still see merit in the argument that English bands really took it to the masses and developed it as an idea. Although I actually prefer "proto-punk" and "new wave" or "post-punk" to the actual punk era.

In reference to an earlier post, which recently provoked a pretty big reaction, in a way, it's sort of comforting to know that my opinions about student politics caused so much anger; DUSA seemed to go completely unchallenged for the most part, so it's pretty amusing to see them crawling over themselves to shout me down when I speak up (if you can even call posting my own opinion on my own, largely anonymous personal blog "speaking up"). It's especially funny to see people making particularly vitriolic posts under an anonymous name, before switching to their real name to act like "Uncle Democracy", inviting me over to their office or whatever... Or to see people acting real friendly in the face of what I've said about them, whilst belittling my opinions on their Facebook page.

Stay outta politics, kid. It's a goddamn mug's game. From now on I think I'll stick to talking about obscure bands and silly Youtube videos.

Cheery fucking bye!

Gun Crazy!

Just got back from watching Gun Crazy at the DCA. It was pretty much one of the most exciting films I've ever seen. The chase scenes were fantastic. Here's a clip:



There's a little quote from the director that the person who posted the video stuck alongside it, which I thought was pretty cool:

"We started a mile out of town. John and Peggy knew the intent and content of the scene, improvised their own dialogue and generally played it by ear. It so happens a car pulled out as they drove up. Otherwise she was going to double park. We made two takes and used the second take. Off screen there were people that yelled 'They held up the bank'. It was so real and none of the bystanders knew what we were doing. We had no extras except the people the policeman dircted. Everything - cars, people - was there on the street."

It's amazing the things that you see in more recent films that you think are unique and original and great, only to find that they've been ripped off from some obscure film from 40 or 50 years ago. Nothing seems to be original. Some of the things Tarrantino gets away with are scandalous (for an example, check one of Heather's earlier posts for a clip from Bande Apart; it's a cafe dancing scene which is pretty much lifted wholesale and made into the Jackrabbit Slim's scene in Pulp Fiction.)

So yeah, that was pretty decent, check the whole film if you can, although I'd imagine it would be expensive to purchase. If you're in Dundee, it's on again at the DCA tomorrow night. There was only about 6 other people there, it was crazy. Gun crazy.


Work is going good, although my rather tiring daily activities pretty much consist of a constant reenactment of this video:



Bye!

And it burns, burns, burns!

Couldn't work out how to post this as an embedded file, because it's a bit of a funny link (ie, it's not on Youtube), but here's a link anyway:

Great big fire outside my house.

Full article, with my mother, AKA "Carol Harrison (50)", posing with a basin like a media whore.

So that's quite amusing, anyway.

Also, Stuart has a blog! There's a link to it on the right, but here's another for good measure:

Stuart's blog.

Also, here's Jeff's latest video, for To Be Objectified:



Jeff was fucking great when we saw him the other day, and I'm coming round to the new album more and more - I've found it to be clever rather than deep, if that makes sense. There's plenty of wit and intelligence, but (at first at least) there seemed to be less about life, how it should be lived, and whether anyone really has any idea what's it's all about anyway than in previous albums. But I think the deep thoughts are still there underneath the witticisms, and I like this video, although the start and finish are a bit cheesy (although if you pause the start you can see the cover of "Fuff #7", which is a great comic written by Jeff, which I have read all but one issue of, as I forgot to buy it in Aberdeen).

I forgot to mention the most important thing, at least in diary terms, which is that I got a job at one of the schools where Heather works, as a play worker! Which is awesome. I'm really looking forward to it, I met the kids when I went in for the interview and they seem really cool. I think I'm going to try out a comics class with them.

Anyway, that's enough for one evening.

Auf Wiedersehen!

If you're not greedy you will go far.

Heather downloaded Spotify recently, so we've been testing out it's boundaries by searching for various obscure bands and artists, and checking out some stuff we've not heard in a while, or at all. I was listening to the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory soundtrack, until it got too annoying; somehow it's just not the same without the psychedelic visuals (sorry about the stupid title someone has given this video):



This was one of my favourite films as a kid, along with perhaps the Aristocats and The Yellow Submarine, which for a while I watched practically every time I went to Christopher's house (as well as watching that, we often recorded our own radio shows onto cassette - pretty portentous, I suppose):



So as well as reminiscing about my wayward childhood, which at the moment seems to have been as close to a series of psychedelic episodes as you can get without actually taking LCD, we've also been listening to some bands that have released CDs that are outside our budget, like Herman Dune, who are really great:



I would love to get hold of a pink bear hat like that one.

So yeah, download Spotify, it's great. There is a premium service, but the only real benefit is that you don't have to listen to adverts, which are very infrequent anyway, and mostly seem to be advertising the premium service. Which is strangely self serving and actually quite amusing, rather than annoying.

Toodle-oo!