tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54998322010-04-28T21:59:09.734Z<strong>A SIDE: SONIC TRUTH</strong>: Packing in the certaintyBrucenoreply@blogger.comBlogger264125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-75445499787109064922010-04-28T16:05:00.007Z2010-04-28T21:59:09.743Z

So they finally reopened it yesterday, with Boris and the usual misplaced multiculti larks. That gave me something to get up for on my day off. It’s now serving New † and New † Gate from Dalston Junction, with extension to ‘my’ stations Brockley and Honor Oak and onwards to Crystal Palace next month. But my focus would be on the new stations on the north side, which co-incidentally was their

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-51634686194736510182010-04-26T22:02:00.002Z2010-04-26T22:15:36.790Z

The venue under the arches had been getting more packed each week, but they still kept on coming in bigger numbers. Once so empty and dingy that it could only be used on period film sets, the place had quietly been regenerating itself. Now it was heaving and everybody wanted a piece of the new thing. Tourists and locals, posh and poor, mingled happily, even the early adopters of the scene seemed

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-71898248136710875452010-04-25T12:39:00.006Z2010-04-26T21:32:42.425Z

The first news came on Thursday night but Tom and I, both fans, were out in inebriated twatmode so ignored the elliptic text-as-lyric - 'lemonade is a popular drink and it stil is' - but gamely filled in the rest of the couplet with 'I've got more props and stunts than bruce willis'. When I found out properly about Guru's death from myeloma cancer it was a chastening moment, and as a fan if not

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-25175361215327469742010-04-25T12:25:00.004Z2010-04-25T20:18:37.129Z

The NME informs of exclusive unseen pictures of Bongo and the Hedge's band U2 from days. Here, this serves as no more than a cue to dig out comments from Nick Kent, former rock narcissist in the age of dinosaur journalism, in the context of an Independent article on the Glastonbury line-up (and the promotion of his book, i guess): 'U2 were crap when they began and are still vastly overrated and

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-49850084007641065972010-04-20T21:47:00.006Z2010-04-21T09:30:45.346Z

You may have read that Earl Brutus will have reformed and are headlining a stage at Glastonbury. Great news of course, but not entirely accurate as my friend George Phillips, drummer in their final incarnation and at their last-ever chaos at Hammersmith WMC, explains: 'We are called THE PRE NEW. We've been billed at Glastonbury as Earl Brutus which is a mistake although we will be doing several

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-80508656588141396542010-04-16T11:32:00.005Z2010-04-16T21:07:03.602Z

My bout of extreme indulgence, and a three-week break from posts, is over with the completion, brass section please, of the latest mix. Copies are being burnt, the artwork (in-Design with a bit of P-Shop help from Tom) printed and the product posted out to mates. Partner and children perhaps breathe a sigh of relief as I return to something like participation in family life. From the outset the

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-33391335588073280242010-03-31T10:37:00.008Z2010-03-31T12:51:24.890Z

We recognise the lack of quality music criticism since the traditional press decided Everything is Great and the online community largely failed to take up a more objective role (this was never a mission statement of the blogs, but one would have expected more from the likes of Pitchfork, Fact, Quietus and so on, and not just cheap shots at the easy targets too). This has not developed solely

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-36241399614483716952010-03-21T13:43:00.005Z2010-03-22T14:10:00.674Z

This week's favourite track came to me in the usual contradictory circumstances. The Family Sonic were off to see Suffolk relatives, and I had won the music battle in the people carrier, mainly because Alexander Nut was playing some lovely downtempo techno and house on his Saturday lunchtime Rinse show. Yeah, yeah, silly Dad trying to hang on to the nodes, modes and mores of days. Hadnt Mum

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-8427657986638913612010-03-13T23:13:00.007Z2010-03-14T09:42:53.302Z

Amelia Troubridge's image of Shaun Ryder tying the knot made Britons of a particular vintage smirk. 'Look, Shaun looks just as boring as us now', we droled on a break from our content management systems, enjoying the Happy Mondays' singer resemblance to a lifetime office worker who has divined the middle management game aint worth the trouble but knows enough about the tech stuff to earn his keep

Cullanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-14287937384648812042010-03-03T16:07:00.007Z2010-03-04T11:35:58.211Z

So the BBC has earmarked digital station 6 Music along with The Asian network for closure, in a wider move that seems to be a pre-emptive trimming of its capacity ahead of a possible Tory government and subsequent crackdown. It's the opposition with various Murdoch media that are usually in the frontline of the BBC's attackers ('Big, Bloated and Cunning' was a particularly peevish editorial last

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-3757952888819833102010-02-23T13:46:00.008Z2010-02-23T14:34:48.643Z

Saturday night at Manchester’s Pronk! run by Matt aka Rod Hotly who’s in the ‘beat-heavy’ (but song-centred) ">Real Dolls. They take over the upstairs at the Deaf Institute and bring in their own clear and crisp system rather than using the club’s, and there’s projections and the club logo in evidence. I heard dubstep, some wobble, hard new percussive/digital tunes, bit of older hip-hop, funk and

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-69621230414399783382010-02-23T13:40:00.002Z2010-02-23T13:45:34.688Z

Marc was in Hull on a job the other day and stumbled across ">Boothferry Park, Hull’s former football ground (they moved to the KC stadium in 2002). Long a mess even before it got decommissioned it seems what’s left after the demolition (including floodlights) is being allowed to be swallowed up (something that would not surprise Sean O’Brien). Said Starrzinho: “They still had the floodlight

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-39228036601960771892010-02-19T13:51:00.003Z2010-02-19T13:59:27.664Z

In our eco-barely conscious times cycling is, ahem, riding a cyclical high. Sales of those ugly but practical Bromptons to those that can afford £600 soar, participation in subsidised work bike purchase schemes is on the increase, most broadsheets have worthy columns ">like this extolling the social and personal benefits of two wheels. Go green and get on your bike, replace carbon footprint guilt

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-28266836722451780332010-02-17T12:48:00.003Z2010-02-17T13:03:34.324Z

Jerusalem, directed by Jez Butterworth and recently transferred from the Royal Court, stars Mark Rylance as the free-living, drug-dealing Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron who lives in a caravan, willingly outside of mainstream south Wiltshire society (apart from its pubs). After an inspired treatment of Hamm in Beckett’s Endgame, Rylance plays Byron with ferocious whimsy, a dedicated commitment to the kind

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-74701550866675158122010-02-05T14:03:00.003Z2010-02-05T21:35:01.357Z

+++++update: fabio did indeed sack terry off, putting the leadership baton in the capable hands of renowned clean lifestyle guru Rio Ferdinand. Not only has Johnny Terry let himself down, he's let down the whole of the country, especially Epsom. For that reason alone he needs to be regarded as an isolated case of immoral urges. And sent to play in Dubai instead.Cull speculated years ago on the

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-73888037785703327612010-01-26T13:16:00.006Z2010-01-26T16:45:15.228Z

Guardian Weekend Magazine’s Let’s Move To section has bigged up the Brockley and Honor Oak Park area, also including Nunhead to the north-west and Ladywell to the east in a general South-East London primer for young professionals (aka yuppies). Earlier migrants now contemplate the bittersweet thrill of recognition with the prospect of younger versions of themselves coming in to continue the area’

Cullanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-87161449373107083282010-01-21T12:17:00.005Z2010-01-21T12:52:24.901Z

My search for that tune I was banging out on the M1 and banging on about here did not yield instant gratification. It started on Nihal's page - he said Nucleya's Beat One but YouTube merely had what must be the original, so i then started going through tunes either side - one tune by Nuphlo suggested he might have remixed this. So a search on that finally got me there, Nihal having recently

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-53109801419253221962010-01-20T14:42:00.006Z2010-01-21T13:31:59.481Z

Rearranged semi-final derby day, City’s home leg. With no Euston trains from Manchester after 8 and a need to get back to London that night, I had no option but to shit on my carbon footprint by driving solo there and back. Having done the usual by pissing around at home, stocking up on CDs and reading the City blogs with their mixture of bearish fear and bullish confidence until at 2:15pm it

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-50909851734225429122010-01-13T11:32:00.006Z2010-01-13T17:48:31.728Z

In a fairly clinical rebuttal to the charge that digital music is just all flat files and no aesthetics, mega aggregator the Hype Machine's project to twin the 50 most blogged about artists last year with 50 artists has produced some great artwork for the bands, transcendent of bland brand logos or each single or album release. Pick your favourites here. If it is just about the music, here are

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-26829042392519649932010-01-07T20:51:00.003Z2010-01-07T20:59:31.574Z

snow: it's a logistical nightmare:that's a BT mechanic trying to get his van going in the middle of the road.the view to ladywell station from ladywell fields.

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-796212071125935862010-01-07T14:09:00.006Z2010-01-21T13:32:58.913Z

Of course I didn’t choose the 10 in splendid isolation, there were always several candidates for each place. So to truly sign off the overview (please) it’s only fair to mention the contenders.Miss E’s ">Get Ur Freak On I thought always stood out in an r&b genre whose innovation had been overstated. My other main generic candidate, Mary J Blige’s Family Affair, was a much more conventional

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-29057387639837119762010-01-04T12:49:00.006Z2010-01-04T13:08:30.725Z

My mate Fish heads the United Hampshire movement (ie, he follows the Shots and the Saints) and is frequently at gigs or in record shops. Here's his decadal ten - all links are to YouTube clips. [Top 10 here, Foreword and Further Reading here. Notes here]* Freelance Hellraiser - a ">Stroke of Genius - back when mash-ups and tight jeans were actually cool, the strokes meet aguilera, seemless

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-37228066605693551782010-01-02T14:57:00.005Z2010-01-02T15:02:56.704Z

"I came out here to this shed because i wanted to do something extraordinary ... also i would have avoided helping out around the house ... getting a bit worried that this adventure wont make sense without more beer ... (blub) .... I don't want to descale a washing machine"

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-5802688438765204682009-12-30T13:05:00.005Z2010-01-07T14:29:36.870Z

[Top 10 here, Foreword and Further Reading here, the also-rockers here]The indulgent Noughties, that much maligned tournant du siècle decade where technological advance seemed only to bring socio-cultural regression, started late and ended early, after the Towers (and the new iPod) and before the credit crunch. With mere days to go before corporatised, time-precious fuckers can start running

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5499832.post-54211684198608102392009-12-30T12:21:00.007Z2010-01-07T14:34:10.971Z

Further reading:* Ghostly International’s non-Ghostly 110 of the 2000s* Fact Magazine's Top 100 albums * Pitchfork's Top 20 * Guardian Top 10 * Stylus Decade (coming soon) * Noughties notes on musical fragmentation * Fact's 10 house producers of the decade * Blissblog's 9 09s* Guide's People Who Ruined the Decade * Why Kek-W has no favourite album of the decade* Howay Howey! Salaam Ali! Allez Le

Cullanoreply@blogger.com0