Dear Mr. Ballard,

I seriously regret not reading one of your books whilst you were still alive. That copy of Empire of the Sun hovered, like a tantalising book-beacon, in my line of vision every time I inspected the shelves of the 'teen' section. I was going to get around to it, honest, but this proved too good to ignore, and as soon as I turned the middle page of the book some young whipersnapper done bought your masterpiece. The cheek.

Anyway, I never realised how influential you actually were until, the day before your death, I talked about you with my dad in Borders. You're a damn, damn cool guy. I just wish that I'd got the chance to tell you, somehow. You struggled long and hard, you crazy dystopian bastard. I'm sure, when I do get round to Super-Cannes or Crash or The Atrocity Exhibition or the other ones, that I'll be grateful you were around to write them.


RIP

xxX

Amanda Blank

I really can't make my mind up about her new single. Anyone who's heard Spank Rock's crazymazing debut LP Yoyoyoyoyo (obscure 2005 hip-hop reference - SHOOT ME), specifically 'Bump', will know how totally and utterly brilliant a rapper she can be. That part when she speeds up about 2 minutes from the end leaves even Spank himself for dead, and she's deliciously filthy the whole way through.

If you're ready to step
Cos' I'm a throw down kinda bitch
I don't play around
See I cut the fuck up
And I knock the fuck down

Agreed.

She hasn't actually done much since then, though, which is why I was very pleased to hear about the first actual single from an actual album actually 'Might Like You Better'. Apparently it uses a refrain from an old track, but it's either before my time or I'm behind my time. I can't get my head around it much. The production's good, glitchy and slightly apathetic and thus apt - and how catchy the synth lead is cancels out how totally fucking annoying it could be. But Amanda herself seems a bit bored. The line the whole track is built on is delivered with all the sex appeal of a woman who has just had a c-section, and her rhymes, rather than the staggering and staggeringly dirty cat-hiss of '05, now sound forced - after making her name ploughing one lyrical furrow, it seems Blank is unable, unwilling or afraid to stray beyond the closeted niche she has inhabited up to this point. It gets by and would do well in a club, and like I said, it's damn catchy, but one gets the feeling there's a whole lot more she could give if only she moved from the (admittedly rather restrained) female rap sterotype.

Also, this awesome dude is having an exhibition at the Tate which ends on my birthday. I missed his last London one, I'm determined not to do the same this time around;

Remind me?

Kay thanks, bye

xxX

'My Friend'

HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN
HALLEN

Name = dropped.

The funniest thing I've seen this week is a review of Eminem's new single on iTunes by a chap called fergus9876;

eminem not the best - ***
"every one knows of eminem as amazing raper and he is but this song isnt great it annoying and no way near one of his best songs and he also only rapss well when its about life also the other person who wrote bout this spelt eminem wrong"

xxX

Melody Gardot

I DO NOT CARE
STOP APPEARING WHENEVER I LOG ON TO MYSPACE
STOP FOLLOWING ME ALL AROUND THE INTERNET
CEASE YOUR IRRITATING POP-UP ADVERTISEMENTS
YOU HAVE A RIDICULOUS NAME
I HAVE NOT LISTENED TO YOUR MUSIC, AND I DON'T WANT TO, SO PISS OFF

SRSLY, ANGRY NOW

xxX

(And now I find out she's disabled and feel like a bad person)

How 2 B Justice

• Leather jacket on
  
• Swing piano
• Childrens choir
• Compress that motherfucker
• Hope people still buy it

Bored now,

xxX

Hot Club of Cowtown

When I was about 8ish, there were a few cds my parents would put on in the car every single time we went somewhere. Over the last year or so I've dug them up and some of them have made me so very happy - Graceland is one of my favourite albums ever, fact, I can't believe I let it leave my life for so long.

I think we were given Tall Tales by the Hot Club of Cowtown by some American friends who lived a road or two away, and I do remember it playing over and over on dusty summer evenings driving back from somewhere-or-other. The Club are this three-piece swing band who formed over a decade ago in NYC, and, after a hiatus from 2005-2008, are back and touring again. All three of the group are absolutely incredible musicians, really quite astonishingly good at times, and Tall Tales, which, as far as I know, is all original material, is packed with '40s bangers. My father used to joke that 'I Can't Tame Wild Women, But I Can Make Tame Women Wild' was my theme song, which, as you can imagine, was totally side-splitting for a chubby little boy such as I.

They're touring the UK (they never seem to stop touring, if their website's to be believed) in May, including a London date at Dingwalls on the 28th. Do go and see them, it'll be a yee-haw of a night, and keep this brilliant group going.

In other news, I had a rockin' Pesach. In case you haven't seen them, Jewish fun here and here.

xxX

Lazy blog Post

One fears the first of many. It's just videos I watched last night at my friend's house;

Cereal

Chimps/Cats

Crying

Nostalgia

And my current favourite website.

I shall return to normality soon enough. Revision is clogging my brain with useful facts that are useless.

xxX

Obamania 2: Eurotrip

First of all, two albums by two of my favourite artists came out today - Two Suns by Bat For Lashes, and It's Blitz! by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I waltzed down to my local record shop today in order to buy them, and paying no heed to my painstakingly constructed and colour-coded revision timetable, stuck them on repeat and haven't taken them off since. They're amazing, they're beautiful, buy them and love them.


Obama's on the continent! Hurrah! Along with his awe-inspiring wife, Obama has spent the last week touring Europe, being nice to Muslims and thinking he's Conan O'Brien. I was just as excited as you when I saw him in the president-mobile last week pulling up outside Downing Street and making me realise how dull my head of state was.

And that's just the thing. With the hugely high voter turn-out at the last polls, especially in the 18-35 demographic, people have been banging on about how Obama has politicized young people and made the next generations far more turned on than the current one. It is undoubtedly true that November's election captured the hearts and minds of pretty much the entire western world, and it is highly likely that the youth of the US will feel a far stronger bond with politics after it. But it may actually have the opposite effect on much of the rest of the world's youth. Just surveying the current leaders of the UK political parties, I feel about as politcized as a walrus with a sore tusk. In America, you vote for one person who roughly correlates with the manifesto of the group he represents - in the UK, you vote for the party, specifically the MP who represents your region of around 70,000 people. The system across the pond is far more personal, intimate and ultimately more rewarding, especially considering the fact that you're essentially voting for the next most-important-person-in-the-world. What may happen is that young people, not just in Britain but across the world, may actually become embittered and disappointed by the fact that none of their own politicians or parties measure up to the visceral, exuberant thrust of Barack Obama, leading to a generation disinterested in politics. Perhaps it's just youthful ennui, but I for one have absolutely no desire to vote for any of the major parties in the next election, especially when they appear so out of touch (or desperately misjudged) with me and my contemporaries.

I moan too much. Beg me to stop.

xxX