Dom's Rambles

When I discovered this 100% faithfull replica of a 1940 Ju-87 Stuka pilot's channel jacket on eBay recently I simply could not resist it and had to order one.

posted by Dom  # 9:56 PM 0 comments links to this post

Your gracious host was not really in the party mood last night and wasn't going to bother with the annual Halloween bash at an old friend's place but relented after receiving a late night phone call.
A house full of psychiatric nurses I can handle, but - and as the above picture attests - I was none too impressed to discover the place crawling with social workers.

posted by Dom  # 3:05 PM 0 comments links to this post

Or this one from a more recent edition.

posted by Dom  # 9:04 PM 1 comments links to this post

The best night out of my entire life, which I will go misty eyed to recall until the end of my days, wasn't a heavy metal one, it was a house do, namely the Boxing Day 1995 Love to be… bash at the Music Factory (as was) on London Road in Sheffield. At around four in the morning, I was in the middle of the packed dance floor, flying off my fucking tits, with that indescribable rush of orgasmic electricity surging through my veins and just coming up on my third E of the night (and in those days the drugs did work – you certainly didn’t need to neck half a dozen pills just to get a halfway decent buzz like you do today). I remember thinking that the euphoria couldn’t possibly get any more intense when one of the guys I’d gone out with leaned over and yelled in my ear,
“Do you realise, that apart from going to refill our water bottles, we’ve been on the dance floor for five fucking hours?”
I looked around at my 2,000 or so like minded peers and the tears of joy poured down my face. I thought to myself I never want to leave this dance floor, I want to stay here forever!
But in the cold light of day, and when the MDMA high had subsided, I always knew that the party was an ephemeral joy – parties, as The Artist Who Formerly Had A Tenuous Grip On Reality once remarked, aren’t meant to last.
It is an immutable law of nature that every form of popular music (and its associated youth culture), regardless of how revolutionary it may initially have seemed, will sooner or later become tired, formulaic and ultimately an embarrassing parody of itself. None more so than the aforementioned Nineties dance scene and in the case of the cheesy German techno ensemble Scooter (see the above video if you're not familiar with their oeuvre) you have to be listening very hard indeed to tell the difference between them and their piss take tribute act Moped.
When I first heard Moped on the Chris Moyles Show last Thursday morning I ended up having to pull over at the side of the road because I was laughing so much. Their reworking of Coldplay’s Clocks really is hilarious, ditto Livin' On a Prayer and Sweet Child O’ Mine.

posted by Dom  # 12:05 AM 0 comments links to this post

For those who don’t know about these things the Roland MC-505 Groovebox is a combined eight track MIDI sequencer and multitimbral sound source with a hands on, real time, control surface – and that’s about as simply as I can explain it without descending into geek speak. I originally bought one of these little beauties in 1998, shortly after they were first released, but traded it in a year or so later when the staggering advances in computer music technology being made at the time rendered it superfluous to the requirements of my bedroom studio.
Of all the musical equipment that’s passed through my hands over the years this was the one item I really wished I’d hung on to. There’s an indefinable something about these units that make them so much fun to use and they have such character – more, in fact, than certain ex-girlfriends I could mention (MC-505s don’t fake epileptic fits to garner attention either – even if it is a bit tricky to get your knob inside them).
Although I was heavily into dance music during this period, it did occur to me that if I'd had a Groovebox in the early part of 1987 then, bandwise at least, things would have turned out very differently indeed – I’d even go so far as to say that the whole course of rock ‘n’ roll history would have been altered!
Suffice it to say that when I saw an MC-505 on eBay for the give away price of £140 a couple of weeks ago I just had to have it and have been refamiliarising myself with the thing (and annoying the neighbours) ever since.
Also, and while we’re on the subject of equipment that’s passed through my hands, if a certain person is reading this, I’d like my Supernova and JP-8080 back.

posted by Dom  # 9:18 PM 0 comments links to this post

Via the Samizdata blog comes this piece of financial advice.

If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95, with HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50, £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5, but if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium re-cycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and re-cycle.

posted by Dom  # 10:26 PM 1 comments links to this post

UPDATE: While looking for Depeche Mode tickets I discovered that Judas Priest have also announced tour dates so at least there's a silver (or should that be steel) lining to this cloud!

posted by Dom  # 8:33 PM 1 comments links to this post

Doubtless readers will agree that this sophisticated example of the genre transforms our so-called familiar urban landscape into something self-referential, stochastic, and yet at the same time mundane.

posted by Dom  # 8:50 PM 0 comments links to this post

Members Of Twisted Sister Now Willing To Take It
NEW YORK—In a stunning reversal of their long-stated reluctance to take it, members of heavy-metal band Twisted Sister announced Monday that, after 24 years of fervent refusal, they are now willing to take it. "I acknowledge that we promised not to take it anymore, but things change. The world is a different place today, and with that in mind, we would like to go on record as saying that, starting right now, we are going to take it," read a statement released by the band's lead singer, Dee Snider. "To clarify, we would still prefer not to take it, but as of now, taking it is an option that we would be open to. That is all." Bassist Mark "the Animal" Mendoza also stated that, in regards to what he wants to do with his life, he no longer solely wants to rock, but would instead prefer doing other things, such as raising a family and working as a claims adjuster in Rye, NY

posted by Dom  # 10:37 PM 0 comments links to this post

I was saddened to hear that P J O'Rourke, by far my favourite contemporary writer and one whose style I embarrass myself by trying so desperately to mimic, was recently diagnosed with cancer of the colon. Thankfully though, he has an excellent prognosis and here's wishing him a full and speedy recovery.
I was also relieved to find him in good spirits.

I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.

posted by Dom  # 8:08 PM 0 comments links to this post