Great post here by K-Punk about Celebrity Big Brother. I would add that The Sun's campaign during this whole episode stinks of hypocrisy: they'll happily castigate the French ("we wouldn't want that on our worst enemy!" - after an Englishwoman went into a coma, woke up, and believed that she was French) and the Germans, or migrants from Romania, or anything Brussels-related (insert 'bureaucrat' here), in their 'Comment' section, and it's quite allright to do that, with millions of readers chortling along. Yet anyone else in the world and all of a sudden The Sun is the most self-righteous paper in the world. Not that this is an excuse for Goody's stupidity, of course...and has anyone on Big Brother ever had an IQ that goes into double figures anyway??

Bobby Gillespie undercovered as not actually that rock n roll shock.
I was obsessed with Screamadelica when it came out. Even the boogie-woogie of that following album wasn't too bad (and the largely forgotten Dixie Narco EP was amazing). I thought Vanishing Point and XTRMNTR were their last great albums; then came Kate Moss and calling an album 'Riot City Blues'. Now Primal Scream are a ham-fisted pub rock act. Still, rock 'n' roll, eh?

Sovereign donuts, er...?

this has to be one of the best stories I've heard all year. You couldn't make it up. Why can't indie bands be this entertaining....the myspace blog link is hilarious

Some pictures of ATP I took up here (click on the 'All Tomorrow's Parties' set on the right of the screen). We really did feel that hungover when on/near the beach...and following on from my previous posts about noise/industrial music, it's interesting to see that William Bennett from Whitehouse has laid equally into ATP (scroll down to the post entitled 'All Yesterday's Teenage Bedroom Walls') and The Wire ('Propagation of the Faith 2' post) on his blog here, which made me laugh. I thought that Wire article about the noise genre - of which Whitehouse remain a huge influence (they were doing 'Shitfun' back in '81?) - was pretty good, especially when it contrasts how popular a band like Wolf Eyes have become and then compare it with just how underground the scene was in the pre-internet age.

Those posts about All Tomorrow's Parties made me think about just how weird the noise scene can be - a genre that's always had its fair share of freaks and weirdos. As The Wire recently pointed out, the democratisation or recording, and the ease of releasing material, has meant that many bands that orbit the freakout/noise scene are so prolific now that their myriad releases can also be seen as a sort of constant diary or journal, if you like. Not that this endless productivity seems to have affected Wolf Eyes, mind, whose recent Human Animal album was there best yet.
Those kind of scenes have always had a fascination with the unconventional, of course, and this extends to the packaging of records - after all, who can forget the story about one of Japanese noise-meister Merzbow's many albums coming in a car? So it meant that you had to had to actually buy the car to get the album. Strangely enough, the album didn't sell many records. In fact, it sold very little. Probably about two, I would imagine (I think Rough Trade have got one).

Anyway, in tribute to a genre which has its fair share of stupid band names, here is a list of classics. All these bands are genuine (though not all are noise bands, I should add).

Jackie-O Motherfucker

Ashtray Navigations

16 Bitch Pile-Up

The Small Faeces

MV / EE + The Bummer Road

To Live and Shave in LA

Smell & Quim

The Atomic Bitchwax

Ten Minutes With My Dad

Somebody Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness

AIDS Wolf

Hair Police

Fuck Buttons

Harry Pussy

Starving Weirdos

Duran Duran Duran

Kylie Minoise

The Fucking Champs

Shit-Spangled Banner (now Sunburned Hand of the Man)

Birds of Delay

Half Man Half Biscuit

Gays In The Military

Anal Beard

My Cat Is An Alien

The Holy Fuck