Hail the Acapella Knights of Cydonia

Love this acapella version of my favourite Muse track.

A little weird to watch at first, but bear with it...very funny....

Dicking around or desecration?

Figures have been released on the eve of Remembrance Day revealing that war memorials are being desecrated at the rate of more than one a week. There has been a rash of these stories in the news recently, most notably the image of ‘sports tech’ student (*snigger snigger*) Philip Laing relieving himself on a memorial in Sheffield city centre (right). Note to self: join the Facebook group ‘Phil Laing - Scum Of The Earth’ and book a seat on the coach trip to piss on his memorial in 60yrs time.

Again, as I mentioned in an earlier post, why do Brits feel the need to punch themselves in the face repeatedly so often? Can’t we just be proud of ourselves without feeling uncool about it? And why is it that we are proud to be British at sporting events such as the World Cup and The Ashes, but we go around spraying graffiti on the graves of our own British war heroes? WTF?!?!

Here’s an idea: catch the vandals, enlist them in the army and dispatch them immediately to Afghanistan. Hopefully they’ll take the place of some of the real men that we’re losing out there and, to be honest, the UK could do with a chav cull.

The great wardrobe throw-out and the Clothes Show Live 2009

There comes a time in every girl’s life when she has to make sacrifices. A time when she has to wrench herself away from those she loves and discard them, no matter how much it breaks her heart. A time when she realises that she must leave the past behind and move on to other things. Other looks. Other fabrics. Other seasons. I’m talking, of course, about the bi-monthly wardrobe sort out.

It’s the Clothes Show Live in Birmingham on 4-9 December and I am desperately trying to avoid all mention of it, simply because my floorboards will not take another cute dress or yet another pair of jeggings. It’s a real problem. I skipped the A level Maths class in which we were taught the following equation: love of clothes + excessive shopping = less storage room. I lie in bed at night listening to my wardrobes strain and groan under the sheer capacity of clothes that I force into them on a regular basis and promising myself that I will take a bin liner to them first thing in the morning and mercilessly fill it with charity shop donations. But a cull very rarely takes place and, to be honest, the entire contents of the wardrobes are a complete unknown to me (there could be a small family in residence at the back for all I know).


On the positive side of things, opening my wardrobe each day is like visiting a new boutique or department store. There is always something waiting to surprise me in there that I had completely forgotten about. And if there is one lesson that this increasing lack of space has taught me it is to be highly selective when clothes shopping. What was once ‘quite nice’ is now ‘too long’, ‘too short’, ‘not quite the right material’, ‘not quite the right colour’. I regularly find myself standing in a shop with a dress out at arms length critically analysing whether it deserves to make the wardrobe guest-list and be crammed in amongst the other lucky pieces. ‘Hmmm, I can see what they’re trying to do, but it’s not quite right…the colour needs to be a little darker and the fabric a little thinner…’ I have become the Simon Cowell of the high street.

But the wardrobes are the least of my worries. There is also the chest of drawers crammed full with t-shirts and tops, the drawers straining with nightwear and lingerie sets that I hardly ever wear, the big plastic boxes filled with God-knows-what on top of the wardrobes, the open wardrobe jammed with smart jackets and winter coats and the antique desk filled with costume jewellery that is constantly tying itself up in knots. And I don’t even want to mention the whole shoe issue…



This is a crisis, people!!

So I’m fighting the urge to book tickets for the Clothes Show Live this year, that is unless I can be brutal enough to throw out around 1/4 of my wardrobe between now and the end of this month. It’s worth a try, particularly as it’s always donated to charity, so wish me luck! Or, alternatively, I could keep everything and open a rival Clothes Show at Chez Geek…

…hmmm, I wonder how much it would cost to build a runway in the garden…?

Green Day and pink bunnies

There are a number of mysteries that continue to confound modern man. Is there an afterlife? Why do we age? Is there life on other planets? Do all questions have an answer? Can you cry underwater? In the song Yankee Doodle, is he calling the horse or the feather “macaroni”?

But the greatest mystery of all must be this: exactly who is the drunk bunny warm-up act for the band Green Day?

Last week I saw Green Day play live at the LG arena in Birmingham (lovely, shiny spanking new building by the way, but such a bitch to walk to from the car park…). GD formed part of the staple musical diet at my high school and I’ve been a huge fan for years since, but, to my shame, I’ve never seen them play live. Having narrowly missed out on tickets to the American Idiot tour four years ago, there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was missing the guys this time around. The gig was excellent; the band rocked out the arena and Billy Joe Armstrong was as adorable as ever, so nothing new to report there. But there was one part of the evening that was particularly entertaining; the warm-up act. And I’m not talking about the support band here…

I’ve heard distant rumblings on music forums about the drunk bunny that appears onstage to warm up the crowd at Green Day gigs, but it wasn’t until the little fella staggered out on stage, beer bottles in hand, and started to lead the entire arena in a drunken rendition of YMCA that I realised why the fans love him so much. The cheers that went up when he came out on stage would have made some established bands jealous. Camera started flashing and fans were chanting ‘down it, down it’ as he chugged down his first bottle of beer in one.



So who is the bunny? Rumours abound as to whether the pink-bunny-suited entertainer is one of the crew or even a member of the band and speculation will no doubt continue…assuming GD keep on using him as their warm-up act, that is, which I hope to sweet Jebus they will for many many years to come. In fact, ditch the support acts guys. Give the bunny a guitar and some backing musicians and let’s see if he can rock out!

It was a great night, an excellent gig and thanks for the laughs, drunk bunny, whoever you are…

Happy Halloween Ghoulfriends!

The death of Stephen Gately and the rise of public pack mentality

I’ve been biting my tongue since receiving news of Stephen Gately’s death for two reasons. First, I was waiting to see how the media would handle the story. Second, I was waiting to see who would be first to ask a few bloody obvious questions and start the complaints ball rolling. The latter was inevitable, like watching a car crash in slow motion…

Jan Moir’s article on Stephen Gately’s death has attracted 25,000 complaints and counting and she has been vilified for her allegedly homophobic comments, but I detected something much more sinister lurking beneath this whole debate when it hit the headlines earlier this week. Leaving the content of Moir’s article aside (we’ll come to that later) lets start with how the story broke. What really concerned me was the way in which the whole thing kicked off on Twitter. I watched it happen first hand and was amazed at how quickly it spread across the Twitter network. By the time that I had read Charlie Brooker’s first tweet on the subject (which read ‘Jan Moir manages to walk the difficult tightrope between being a bitch and a c**t’ – lovely sensitivity there, Charlie, now what’s that you are saying about causing offence?), clicked the link, read the article and returned to my Twitter page, my news feed was crammed full with fellow twitterers complaining about Moir. Now I’m a fast reader, but that was pretty fast work! Then a number of other celebrities retweeted the link to the article and shortly after, within only minutes, the bandwagon had picked up full steam and was fast rolling out of control. I watched the whole network light up and before long a real sense of pack mentality had set in. Regardless of the article content, the rabid eagerness with which we scrambled to ‘burn the witch’ was pretty scary stuff. Moir herself noticed this, as she pointed out in her subsequent article:

‘Certainly, something terrible went wrong as my column ricocheted through cyberspace, unread by many who complained, yet somehow generally and gleefully accepted into folklore as a homophobic rant. It lit a spark, then a flame and turned into a roaring ball of hate fire, blazing unchecked and unmediated across the internet.’

I can’t say that this sort of outcry was entirely unexpected because for some time now I have observed a worrying change in public behaviour. It is becoming cool to complain. It almost feels as though the public are trying to trump the number of complaints mustered from the previous mass outrage. But why are we doing this?

There have been several incidents in the entertainment business over the last few years that have attracted a large number of complaints. Take, for example, Jade Goody’s argument with Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother 2007? Hands up all of you who registered a complaint about the treatment of Shilpa on BB8? And how many of you actually watched the entire series of BB8? Now I watched that series (it was a slow summer *ahem*) and way, way before the Jade-Shilpa incident occurred I had made up my mind that Shilpa had a seriously self-righteous princess syndrome thing going on. And who knew that the argument was sparked off by Shilpa’s decision to undercook a chicken? In hindsight, I would have reacted in exactly the same way in the face of any potential food poisoning and ‘don’t you know who I am?’ pomposity regardless of my dinner host’s race, colour or ethnicity...only with a little more decorum and a great deal more vitriol. Many felt the same as the backlash on the BB forums and support for Jade was considerable, with even a few BB related celebs throwing their support behind her. And how many folk who were calling for Jade’s head on a pole after her ‘racist attack’ were fawning over her at her funeral?

And then there was the Brand/Ross/Sachs incident. First we were led to believe that the twosome had taunted a delightful elderly actor whose innocent granddaughter had fallen under the spell of lecherous old Brand. Yes, I thought, Brand and Ross should both be castrated for revealing the gruesome details of this liaison to the woman’s grandfather. And sure enough, the complaints came flooding in. Shortly after the story hit the headlines, a number of comedians on both the TV and radio noticeably toned down their acts, clearly afraid to draw criticism while this vast wave of prudishness was washing through showbiz land. I genuinely thought that I would eventually be reduced to Miss Marple, a pack of cards and a sing-song around the piano for evening entertainment. It then transpired that Sach’s granddaughter was a member of the dance group Satanic Sluts and a number of saucy images of her posing half-naked started to appear in the press. Then rumours began to circulate that Sachs was using the incident to jumpstart his acting career. Sure enough the backlash began, a number of celebs spoke out in defence of Brand and Ross and some of those who complained – and I certainly speak for a large number of people here - felt more thoroughly shafted than anything that Brand was capable of.

Now the complaints are flooding in regarding the ‘homophobic’ content of Jan Moir’s article. Homophobes are a pet hate of mine and I’m more than happy to light my flaming torch and storm the castle when faced with anything even remotely homophobic in the media, but there was one thing in Moir’s article that struck a chord with me. It is a fundamental, albeit regrettable, aspect of our humanity that we like to stick our nose into other people’s business. We like to know why marriages break down, or why someone has been seen leaving someone else’s house in the early hours of the morning. Just consider the media interest currently surrounding the separation of Jordan and Peter Andre. And when a celebrity dies we like to know the cause and circumstances of the death, regardless of whether or not we have any right to pry into the private life of another individual. In this instance a pop star has died suddenly at a young age and I expect that many people, including Gately’s own fans, are curious to discover what exactly happened that night. Yes, people can die suddenly of natural causes at a young age and, having had someone very close to me die unexpectedly in their early-thirties, I can accept this as an entirely credible and acceptable explanation. But there has been such a fluster in the media to sugar-coat the surroundings of Stephen’s death that I must confess that it has raised my eyebrows a little. And now further details of Gately’s death are being made public, it seems that things are not as cut-and-dried that the media would have us believe. Talk of drug use and a stranger accompanying Gately and his partner back to their apartment is surfacing in a number of newspapers. Have the public yet again received an ‘edited’ version of events that serves to fob them off with a nice fairytale ending…?

Whatever events took place that night and whoever was present with the couple may be completely irrelevant to the cause of death and Jan Moir may be entirely wrong to speculate that the cause of Gately’s death was anything ‘unnatural’. Certainly the generalisation that a gay lifestyle = a sleazy, hedonistic lifestyle and ultimately = an early death, is more than offensive in itself. And Moir deserves all the fury that she gets in that respect. But I have spoken to some fellow twitterers recently who are offended at the simple fact that she is casting out wild speculations about his death, regardless of her comments on his sexuality. But aren’t we all guilty of this kind of speculation at some time or other? Just consider the death of Michael Jackson. Rumours were in circulation about the circumstances of his death before his body was even cold, but somehow it was acceptable to ask questions about Jackson’s death. Why is that, I wonder? How about all the conspiracy theories that abounded immediately following Princess Diana’s death? And why is it that if, for example, a member of parliament is found dead in the back of a wardrobe dressed in S&M gear then this usually makes for front page news, with graphic colour photos and a cheeky ‘ooer missus’ headline. Why is that ok, I wonder?

Why is it ok to ask questions about certain celebrities and not others? Are we not allowed to ask questions about Gately’s death because he was in a gay partnership? Is that why? If so, will we all be branded as homophobes for asking questions about celebrities in gay relationships in future? Surely not. We are living in the 21st century, not in the Victorian era! If we are to be encouraged to see no distinction between a homosexual relationship and a heterosexual relationship and treat both partnerships equally, then both must be subjected to the same, albeit often vile and intrusive, treatment by the media. If we want to speculate on the breakdown of a gay marriage or the death of a gay celebrity then we must do so in exactly the same way that we would speculate on the breakdown of a heterosexual marriage or the death of a heterosexual celebrity. Surely treating both relationships differently in the media spotlight is keeping homophobia alive and kicking. And Moir obviously feels the hot breath of the thought police breathing down her neck in this respect:

‘Can it really be that we are becoming a society where no one can dare to question the circumstances or behaviour of a person who happens to be gay without being labelled a homophobe? If so, that is deeply troubling.’

I’m sure that there are many individuals out there in the ‘equality business’ who make a decent living out of drawing up fake battle lines and pointing fingers, but there is no need to keep scratching the scab in order to keep the doctors in business. Yes, any articles written with evidentially homophobic content, if that is how it is rightfully deemed, deserve all the complaints that they receive. But our Lord of the Flies eagerness to bay for blood the very second that a celebrity cries ‘offensive!’ also sends shivers up my spine. We fall for it every time and often without giving the matter any serious thought. It seems that the ‘angry mob’ syndrome is kicking into gear a little too often these days and we need to keep a watchful eye on it…

By the way, if you want a genuine reason to light those flaming torches, take a look at this article on Gately’s death in The Christian Voice. Love thy neighbour…?

THE MUSE INTERVIEWS: INVASION

There seems be a lot of love in the room for Invasion, a psychadelic metal threesome from North London who are currently taking the metal scene by storm. Described by NME as ‘pretty much the most exciting thing happening in UK metal right now’, Invasion has embraced a weird and wonderful concoction of drunk metal, psychedelic rock, soulful Motown vocals and a hefty pinch of fantasy and wizardry thrown into the mix.

It’s difficult to know where to begin singling out the unique attributes of the band. Maybe the female vocalist Chan Brown, who dresses like a shaman-cum-monk and has a powerful, diva voice that is a satisfying shock to the system in a genre that is dominated by shouty male singers. Or maybe wizard-loving, almost seven-foot tall Marek Steven on guitar. Or red-headed female drummer Zel Kaute who has a penchant for heavy drinking and setting fire to her drums onstage. According to the unwritten laws of music genre mashups, this odd combination of heavy riff driven guitar, sexy soulful vocals and trippy rhythms should be a painful mismatch. But I guarantee that after only a few minutes listening to their debut album, The Master Alchemist, you’ll soon be dancing around the room like a stoned loon. In fact, Invasion provides quite possibly the best alternative to tripping out without taking drugs. And the band also makes the coolest music videos ever. If you don’t believe me, just check out the vid for ‘Follow the Smoke’ from the Conjure War promo. Very. Very. Cool.

I caught up with Invasion guitarist Marek ahead of their forthcoming headliner at the Topman CTRL live gig on 29th October in Birmingham…

Metal, Motown and wizardry sounds a bizarre mix but it’s a truly awesome combination! Did you consciously aim to take the ‘fantasy-soul-metal’ route when getting the band together or did it just kinda happen?

Thanks, no it just happened naturally really. I’ve been playing fantasy orientated thrashy stoner metal for a very long time and have always been open to different types of vocals. I think a lot of stoner and similar metal is ruined by some pretty average singing. It just came from being open minded and us meeting at the right time.

What’s the inspiration behind the band name ‘Invasion’?

We came up with it very quickly as we were after an intense name to suit our vibe. It’s not that original but at the end of the day a name’s a name I guess, and you grow into it as you go on. There are few other Invasion’s out there but I guess we are trying to be THE one.

‘Psychedelic metal’, ‘Soul rock’, ‘trippy thrash’…there is a tendency in the music business to pigeon-hole bands into subcategories, but it’s not obvious where you guys fit in. Did you have difficulty finding your niche on the metal scene at first? And how would you describe your music?

Yeah, genre terms are annoying sometimes but I have to say I do use them a lot myself too. I call us ‘wizard metal’ or ‘drunk metal’ sometimes, that’s pretty funny. I guess I would say we are thrashy stoner-doom with soul vocals. Pretty Sabbathy basically. It’s all good. I don’t mind what people call us at all. But yeah we don’t really have a popular scene we can jump straight into so things are going slowly but surely. More similar bands are around now, it’s cool. It’s fun being the underdog a bit!

I suspect that there are a wide range of musical influences to thank for contributing to your unique sound, but are there any artists in particular that you would single out as a major influence?

For me personally as a guitarist it’s all about Black Sabbath’s early albums. And Metallica. My favourite band is the Californian band Sleep – they rule all. And recently The Sword’s debut album really inspired me to keep the heaviness in my own stuff, it’s a modern classic undoubtedly. There’s a lot of stuff. I grew up with the best classic rock, metal, doom and thrash and that’s pretty much all I still listen to. I’ve been delving into some of the smaller NWOBHM bands recently and they sound really fresh right now.

The band is pretty wizard obsessed! Where did this fixation with fantasy and wizards come from?

I grew up listening to fantasy obsessed metal and my brother was deeply into Dungeons and Dragons and general war-gaming. I quickly got very into too and obviously loved Tolkien as well. I played a lot and started a little Advanced Dungeons and Dragons society in my first year at Uni. I also studied a fairly well known Shamanic Consciousness course there too, and generally I love both wizards as characters in literature and for what they represent in a ‘pagan’ sense (for want of a better word). But yeah everyone is picking up on a lot now which is weird. I want to get a good AD&D group going now actually!

I hear that your debut album, ‘The Master Alchemist’, was recorded in just five days without a sniff of a computer nearby. Would you ever be tempted over to the dark side in future, i.e. to abandon the ‘stripped-down’ rawness of a live take for an over-produced and over-edited, polished sound?

Yeah it was fun but a little intense. They really like you to do stuff in the first few takes and I literally only had time for one or two overdubs on the guitar, pretty insane. I really loved the sound you get in places like that but I would have liked to make it a bit tighter and beefier here and there so I would probably try and compromise next time by waving it in front of a computer for a day or two.

How do you go about the song writing process? Do you sit down together for a head-scratching session or do tracks emerge organically out of jam sessions?

Usually I’ll come up with a couple of riffs - or Zel might have a drum pattern – and we write something very quickly. It usually takes about 30 minutes for some reason. Then we tweak it for a while, often by playing it live. I want to take more time really crafting killer tunes for the second album. I hate it when musicians say stuff like this but I really am excited about it. We have found our sound now, particularly live, and I know exactly what will work now on record. It will be heavy.

‘The Master Alchemist’ is a brief album at only 21 minutes long! Does that make for an equally short live set?

Yeah, we keep it short for sure. We never venture over 30 minutes (unless we are asked to). I really think it’s good to get in and out and leave people (hopefully) wanting more. It’s fun being on stage but sometimes bands don’t actually realise people have had enough and keep playing too long. It kills the vibe slightly. Unless you’re Led Zeppelin, in which case, please carry on…

You’re a spectacularly visual band with shedloads of energy and theatrics on stage; shamanistic outfits, setting the drums on fire and I even hear rumours of a Perspex guitar! If funds, venue sizes and health regulations were unrestricted, what would comprise your ultimate ‘prop toolkit’ to take onstage?

Not sure how spectacular we are but we try and get a vibe going yeah. The Perspex guitar is a super cheap and crap one and I only used a couple of times to be honest but we like to have smoke, subtle lasers and so on, when we can. We were joking about a huge stage show last night actually. We came up with a concept for a full scale fantasy castle front with Zel drumming under the drawbridge and the other rising up through the towers to play on the battlements. With lots of fire of course, and some quality wizard action built into it somehow… yeah anyway, hahaha.

A love of Dungeons and Dragons and thrash metal used to single out individuals as über-geeks back in the day (speaking as a former Warhammer gamer!), but now fantasy and metal are considered cool again! Would you say that the band embraces its geekness or strives for cool?

Yeah, it’s so weird isn’t it? I’m be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed it becoming more trendy in the last few years but it’s literally who I am. I’ve always been a fantasy obsessed metal geek. I’ve come into fashion! I’m starting to enjoy things like the fact girls want to talk to me sometimes now. It really is a huge shift since I was a 16/17 year old kid writing a doom song called Wily Wizard. And it will move on soon I’m sure. Whatever happens I really want quality old school style metal to have a good run of things. I know I’ll be annoyed if doom becomes huge but fuck it, I’d rather listen to people playing that than crabcore or whatever… and yeah Warhammer isn’t my thing but I always loved how visual it was. And Bolt Thrower used some of their artwork – one of the best ever UK metal bands.

What can we expect from Invasion in future? Are you recording new material right now?

We’re recording one classic rock meets doom new track next week that I’m really happy with and we’re planning on having a new album done by very early next year. Like I said I’m confident the second album is going to blow away our first one. We’re doing a UK tour in February, a European tour and SXSW after. It’s a slow process for us but it’s recently picked up really nicely so I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. Happy geek.


Invasion will be headlining the Topman CTRL live gig, taking place on 29th October at the Flapper in Birmingham. Further details of the gig can be found at www.myspace.com/topmanctrl and you can find out more about the band at www.myspace.com/invasion.