F1: The 2010 Formula 1 World Championship Grid

Some thoughts and a quick overview posted at The Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre.
(January 31st, 2010)
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IRL: The New IRL CEO; Randy Bernard

Some thoughts and a quick overview posted at The Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre.
(January 30th, 2010)
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F1: Releasing the Car

Some thoughts and a quick overview posted at The Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre.
(January 27th, 2010)
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F1: Reshaping the Bahrain Grand Prix

Some thoughts and a quick overview posted at The Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre.
(January 25th, 2010)
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Sleep Thieves: 2FM Session

Dublin electro-pop three-piece, Sleep Thieves will have their 2FM session with Dan Hegarty broadcast tonight between 9-11pm tonight.
The session features a number of tracks especially recorded by the band; including Magnetic Heart, 5am November 6th, Do it the Hard Way and recent single, City Lights.

As well as that, the band have just announced that they will be performing a Haiti Benefit show in Whelan's on Wednesday February 3rd with Ham Sandwich, The Holy Roman Army and the Butterfly Explosion. The Facebook page with even more sparkling details for the event can be found here.
Michelle Doherty will be the MC on the night and funds will be collected by the Red Cross.

Current listening:
Los Campesinos "Romance is Boring"


Leigh

Formula 1: Musical Chairs (Updated)

Some thoughts and a quick overview posted on the Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre.
(Updated January 24th, 2010)
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Driven (2001); A Right Piece of Shit

Throughout the latter half of the 1990's, there had been lots of talk about a Formula 1 based film being made. This raised a number of eyebrows at the time, for it is well known that movies about sports tend to lack, well... everything.
Eventually word began to spill out that it was a Sylvester Stallone project and that Burt Reynolds might be involved and everyone in the Formula 1 world - whether that be fans or those in the sport - breathed a sigh of relief when word came out that it was not happening. However, those that were sanctioning the mainly US-based CART series at the time were not so quick to dismiss the idea.

Once one gets past the media frenzy that is any sport's outer shell, they may discover people who are just doing their everyday jobs without glory, glamour and sex. You don't see many films about sports for the same reason you don't see many films about film-making; the behind-the-scenes work is for the most part a very dry experience of people going about their daily business without much sparkle and fanfare.

Try to hype up the background and you may find yourself in an empty shell wrapped up in social tinsel - I know a lot of engineers and none of them do a good Hollywood strut!! Add to that, a growing number of sportspeople tend tend to be very, very dull following years of PR training that often excises personality in favour of clean-living sobriety. To try and make all these factors "sexy" often doesn't work and the result are a bunch of characters that would never exist in real life.

Given some of the people involved in making the movie, it's probably no surprise that Driven is a piece of fucking shit that should never have seen the light of day. For the casual film fan, the script and production is so incredibly shoddy that it makes watching the feature a laborious effort; for enthusiasts of motor-racing, the mechanics of the machines and the director's quests for the most overblown, obscene and frankly impossible crashes make Driven a horrific and embarrassing experience.
The film goes one further by creating some of the most dreadful special effects anyone could possibly imagine; however even that foreknowledge doesn't prepare the viewer for the way the director randomly appears to swap from bad CGI to real footage - it is made even more apparent due to the horribly cartoonish nature of the graphics. One only needs to see the truly awful street-chase scene to get a sense of just how awful this film actually is.
In short, this film is very bad, but to witness the "highlights" of Stallone's epic misadventure, click on the You Tube link below and enjoy the horror of bad film making. It must also be remembered that for a number of the cast, this was a career killer.




Leigh

Formula 1: No Double-Diffusers from 2011 Onwards

Some thoughts and a quick overview posted on the Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre.
(January 22nd, 2010)
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Godless Chanting and Pagan Rituals

Ladies and gentlemen,
The Bring John Belushi Back to Life group has served its purpose and shall be closing after the weekend; however all is not done yet.

This Sunday would have been John Belushi's 51st birthday and to celebrate said birth, I am inviting everyone to join me in a series of Godless Chanting and Pagan Rituals. This can happen anywhere on the day in question with people of your choice.

Basically this requires one to get somewhat intoxicated and have a party (or series of parties) in either toga's or sharp black suits and shades.
If the locals seem bemused, pay no mind...

Hooray and have fun, etc!!
:)
Leigh

Ballroom of Romance #95 (January 22nd; The Lower Deck, Dublin)

(*Tomorrow folks*)
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Swish, they've done it again!! The boys from Ballroom of Romance jump straight into 2010 with show number 95 from the Lower Deck in Dublin - something which should begin a nice run up to their centennial show later this year.

The 95th edition will be opened by Owensie, followed by Groom and Mumblin' Deaf Ro, while The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock will close the evening.
Doors are open at 9pm and you a sparking mp3 compilation when you hand over your hard earned dole.

At €10, it's not a bad price to pay for four bands and what is often a riveting atmosphere; if you head to it, I very vaguely promise you that you shall slut yourself out to 'fun'. Go - go now and don't wait for the trucker from that Spielberg film, Duel to descend upon thee; he is a killer, etc..!!
Owensie MySpace
Groom MySpace
Mumblin' Deaf Ro MySpace
The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock MySpace


Leigh

Burnt Face Man; Episode 9

Burnt Face Man returns after a two year hiatus with its ninth episode. Taking in some adventures he has had in his time off as well as having one or two new ones, this new entry neatly shows Burnt Face Man off as being shitty little cock that he is.
For those that do not know, Burnt Face Man is a really shit superhero, who also happens to have a burnt face - simple. With animator David Firth working on his first feature for the last while, things have been a little thin on the ground over at Fat-Pie.com, but this edition of Burnt Face Man was well worth the wait. As always, this puerile and childish stuff and all the better for it.

Burnt Face Man - Episode 9


Leigh

The Day a Giant Rock Hit the Planet

...or something like that anyway.
I came across this video to my absolute horror this morning - it is a performance at the National Television Awards in London's O2 Arena by Jedward and Vanilla Ice. Their song was a version of "Ice Ice baby" - a single released in the early 90's by Vanilla Ice himself and like a vast corrugation of ejaculating robots, the audience screamed in adoration of quite possibly one of the most abysmal "performances" of all time.

Watch, watch as the skipping and jumping monkeys bound around stage like headless fuckwits reaching for the stratosphere of stardom, before the entertainment Gods open up a hole in sky to lance the trio with fire and........ ehhhhhh...... ice.
To paraphrase somewhat; watch, watch as Simon Cowell's boot stamps on the face of human kind for all time.





Leigh

Review: Charlie Brooker “The Hell of it All”

I am not a fan of the London Underground. Travelling on the thing can become something of a harrowing experience akin to getting a light sedative while a grinning dentist stands over you with a drill buzzing away and for the life of me; I know some sort of horror is approaching, but no matter how hard one tries, there is simply no escape.

There are a number of ways to try and distract the horror – some read the roughened toilet roll/newspaper that is the Metro, not knowing that deep down inside its moronic pulp is slowing chewing away at the brainpan, thereby turning said reader into a drooling, mummified idiot – the metamorphosis is astonishing. Others slap on their iPod to drown both precious minutes and hearing with the latest inoffensive Radio 1 pap, while twitching tube neighbours get visibly angrier and angrier and angrier, until one day they will no doubt burst into a rather large ball of flames that quickly sucks the air out their enclosed carriage (i.e. – their head), thereby making breathing rather difficult – unless of course someone is clever enough to either open a window or throw a bucket over his head; but people like that are never about, are they? Don’t be frightened if this occurs – sometimes it just happens.

Thirdly, one could do like me and read a book. It’s great; not only does reading pass the time, it also happens to make one less untelligent – the only problem is unless the book is incredibly easy to digest, I am normally a painfully slow reader. For example, I have been reading The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross since last June – it’s only 600 pages long and I am only now nearing its completion. Don’t get me wrong – it is a truly fascinating book and one that has made my brain expand by 0.5% and is also a thoroughly enjoyable read, but it is heavy. When you read it, you end up absorbing a lot of information and I have never been a good sponge.

However, there are plenty of examples of books that even I seem to get through incredibly quickly like The Story of Ayrton Senna by Christopher Hilton, Simon Armitage’s Gig …and ehhhhh, well that’s all that I can think of off the top of my head. Charlie Brooker’s, The Hell of it All can now be safely added to that list of easy readables.

It is easy too see why it’s so easy though, for it is just Brooker’s articles from the Guardian since 2007; each little piece is approximately 2 pagers long and easily digestible. Amongst all the commentaries about useless Apprentice contestants and useless Big Brother contestants and useless Britain’s Got Talent contestants and useless… well you get the idea – there are plenty of ditties about culture, politics, travels, games and the sheer horror that is modern life. Because that’s what modern life is – horrible. Or rubbish as Blur were once kind enough to point out.

The format of The Hell of it All means that it can be put down in January and picked up June with no issues, because the structure allows it to be – the only possible problem is if you have no idea who was in the 2007 edition of the Apprentice. Admittedly, I have not seen the show since the first series and right now, I don’t have a television at all; however thanks to my over active thought-box, when it comes to reality TV, all I have to do is picture someone I don’t like and I am sorted. It is also handy that like me, Charlie Brooker is something of a bitter twisted person; thereby making my deep dislike of the human race slightly justified and wholesome.

Best book ever? Not in a million years. Killer of tube monotony? Absolutely, and brilliant at it too!!

Rating: 4 out of 5

Leigh

Review: Neon Highwire "Luminescence EP"

Without wishing to be crass, retro geared electro is the popular mass-music theme at the moment and as such any band with an extra few quid seem to feel the need to get buzz-shit together. Unfortunately most of these band's are shite - Neon Highwire... are not.
Admittedly, from what I have garnered from the electro-indie trio thus far, there is a definite dept to the likes of Justice and Bloc Party's last offering as well as other numerous once-indie converts, but when looking around at the moment, that's hardly surprising. Christ, just gawk at the BBC's Sound of 2010 for fuck sake...
Although, with a name like Neon Highwire, the potential artistic and genre direction of the band should be fairly clear.

Anyhoo, with Luminescense, Neon Highwire have done something slightly different from most electro bands in that they have produced an offering with six original tracks. No remixes, no re-edits, no guest versions; just six new songs.

Opening with "Neon Blink", its buzzsaw synth-lines play opposite sharpened guitars that linger in the air, while brash panicky, strained vocals it below the covers. It is 4 and-a-half minutes of excellent club orientated rock and is a fantastic intro the the EP.

Opening with a very 8 bit-esque jam and dark underlying synth, "Don't: Wait" threatens to descend into kitsch Gameboy music. It's pairing on those very harsh sounds against synth textures and live instruments as heard in the first track don't quite work on this occasion and to be honest, it probably requires a complete departure into the sharp environment of 8-bit to make this a success.
On the other hand "Creation #4.00" works very well indeed. It's high end synths circulate as heavily compressed kick beats swap blows with square sine sounds. Come the midway point of "Creation #4.00", the ghostly vocals climax and a fraught rhythm guitar emerges amidst throbbing bass sequences. Quite a thrilling little piece.

Unfortunately the six new song ethic doesn't quite hold up to the end, as "Under Moonlight" and "Isometric View" are easily the weakest songs on the EP. "Under Moonlight"starts off like it could be a great A-Side with a nice building verse, but falls down at with chorus that loses weight and collapses weakly. This is more of a production issue than a structure one per se, but is still disappointing nonetheless.
On the fifth track, "Isometric View", the real let down here are the vocals, which sound weak for the first time on the release - they sound forced and don't quite work as a result. It's also the first song where the synth lines begin to feel rather tired and end up sounding rather flat, although the heavy build-up of multi-tracks at the end is rather nice.

Finishing Luminescence is "Akira!". It is actually rather reminiscent of "Neon Blink" in terms of structure and feel, but it does contain a good deal more energy - especially towards the latter half of the song. With some inventive remixing and coherent editing, there could be a nice club track in here.
Overall, it is not bad effort by Neon Highwire and while it is hardly revolutionary stuff by any stretch of the imagine, it's definitely worth a listen. Good stuff.
Neon Highwire MySpace
Rating: 3.5 out of 5


Leigh

Shortcutting Formula 1

It was reported during the week that Formula 1 commercial maestro Bernie Ecclestone mused about spicing up races by placing short-cuts at various points at circuits that could be used a number of times during a Grand Prix. Naturally this was picked up by a number of media sources and some fans reacted by going a little bit apeshit about their sport being ruined.
But surely, this is obvious bullshit..? In reality, does anyone really believe that shortcuts would ever be introduced into Formula 1. Quite apart from it being one of the most ridiculous suggestions to have ever dropped from Bernie's mouth, it would go a hell of a long way to appease fair weather fans while killing the enthusiasm for "proper" motor-racing fanatics. So, would it happen?

The chances are... no. Quite simply, there is next to nothing happening in Formula 1 at the moment. For all intents and purposes, Bernie put out a press release (any quote - it really doesn't matter what) that got newspapers and other other media talking about the sport again. Come the end of January, cars start to get unveiled (McLaren is the first up on January 25th) and the initial shakedown tests will begin and this piece of "news" will quickly sink away like it was always meant to.
By the way for 2011, the cars will be getting eight tyres and the year after that fuel will be replaced by the leftover fumes of Welsh dragons as Michael Schumacher prepares to run for the presidency of Germany. I could be bullshitting you though...


Leigh

Franz Liszt "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2"

Forgetting for the moment the hassle of the last few of days, I have decided that it would be nice to take this moment to reflect on some rather wonderful and picturesque sounds. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is probably one of Franz Liszt’s most famous pieces. Composed in 1847 (although not published for a further four years), it manages to balance sublime textures and subtle touches, yet it is also incredibly frantic - at points it resembles a saloon brawl in old western film, such is it's rhythmic flow and effervescent nature.

It was also made rather popular in my youth due to its appearance in numerous cartoons, such as Rhapsody Rabbit (Bugs Bunny, 1946), The Opry House (Mickey Mouse, 1929) and Convict Concerto (Woody Woodpecker, 1959); but that's a post for another time.

The version, that I have kindly put below, was performed in 1995 by French-Canadian pianist, Marc-Andre Hamelin. To put it simply, Hamelin is one of the most technically gifted pianists in the world at the moment and the following performance will probably leave most viewers stunned, as it did me.
So for now, let’s all just relax and enjoy one of the most incredible pieces of music composed and hope for a moment that it detracts from the dross that is our day-to-day lives... maybe.




Leigh

Ceol Ar An Imeall (**Updated**)

(**Update)
Starting tonight folks!!
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Via the magical wonders of Twitter, this morning I came across the promo for Ceol Ar An Imeall, TG4's new music show. Following the shock that RTE2 broadcasted When Under Ether from November through to December and not forgetting the internet debut of Analogue TV, it would seem that Irish music has had more television time in the last two months than in the last... I don't know how long.

Produced and presented by journalist, Una Mullally, the show will debut on the Irish channel on Thursday January 14th; however, like the RTE show of late last year, Ceol Ar An Imeall has been met with the common scheduling curse of Irish television as the show is to be broadcast at a rather late 11.45pm. What a delightful distraction from the horrors of the All-Ireland Talent Show.


Ceol Ar An Imeall promo

Ceol Ar An Imeall promo from Ceol Ar An Imeall on Vimeo.

Leigh

When People Get Angry

I do love it when people get angry. Well no that's complete lie, I don't love it at all - in fact if anything, a rather bemused look creeps across my smug pus ridden face whenever someone gets pointlessly angry at me. Yes, I have had a rather frustrating couple of days and some of you who read this may already know the bones of this story. For those that are unaware, here's a brief tale.
At the start of December, I reviewed a single and suffice to say, as far as I was (and still am) concerned it didn't merit that good an appraisal. In my opinion, the lyrics were weak, the song quite dull and the production was flat; unfortunately the artist disagreed, which is fair enough - artists are allowed to do that. However, something that cannot be tolerated is receiving e-mails from said artist using bully-boy tactics and big scary words to try to force me into taking it down. Needless to say, at this time the review is still online.

When LPX was still active, there was the occasional poor review published as well as a few good ones, but one learns very quickly to just get on with things and not to get bogged down in the thoughts of others. If a review meant an extra sale here and there, that was great; if not, it was no real loss - as I just said, you learn to get on with it. At no point did I ever feel the need to threaten a reviewer, regardless of their thoughts of my work.

Something that I find dreadfully ironic about this whole sorry episode is that until the artist referenced the review yesterday morning, only about fifteen people had read it in the 5 weeks it was online. In the last two days, the hoopla has garnered 700 clicks for that page alone. To a degree, it had become a small, self-generating publicity mobile.
Sometimes I can't help, but want to say to the chap "...if you had just left it alone, no one would have noticed..." however where there are people, there are errors and silliness naturally prevails. If anything, if he had be nicer and less forceful in his e-mails, so might I have been in my response.

It is a rather pointless endeavor to get angry over something that is for all intents and purposes subjective and sometimes one should just accept it and roll on and concentrate on what positives can be garnered from opinion as opposed to crushing anything remotely negative - that can never be good and must not ever happen.
Not only that, but one could also learn a great deal from thoughts that detract from a body of work and possibly use them as a point of reference to improve - an artist could also just ignore the damn thing. Then again, that's most people and unfortunately most people don't exist.
My word, aren't music reviews just shite..?


Leigh

The Idiocy of Complaints

Anyone who knows me knows that I bitch and complain and moan and complain and bitch an awful, awful lot. In fact, it count be said that it is among one of my favourite pastimes - it's often the only way I can get people to listen to my voice on a regular basis. However, I would never be so stupid as to complain about a harmless few words in Doctor Who; unfortunately there are a few that appear to disagree with my viewpoint.

Essentially when David Tennent regenerated into Matt Smith in the final moments of The End of Time, one of his first words was "...at least I'm still not ginger..."
Fine. A humourous little line from a character that has just undergone a traumatic experience, except a bunch of red-topped folk did not seem to appreciate it. In fact, the innocuous sentence actually generated 143 complaints to the press complaints commission. How sad, how very sad...

My mind wandered back briefly to the hurricane in a tea-cup episode that was the "Russell Brand / Jonathan Ross scandal" of 2008 and how so many morons complained about a pre-recorded episode of Brand's radio show - despite most people never hearing it.
As per usual, the BBC had to issue an apology and explanation that reads as though composed with gritted teeth (excerpt below). If anything, it is deeply embarrassing that anyone anywhere would get so fucking uptight about something so ridiculously stupid, but then again there are those that were always meant to complain as though their lives were so insipid and dull, that complaining becomes the only thing to drag one out of mud for air.
Thus the BBC, apologising with expertise not seen since yesterday's Daily Mail wrote that:

"...we would like to reassure viewers that Doctor Who doesn't have an anti ginger agenda whatsoever. This was a reprise of the line in the Christmas Invasion episode in 2005, when David Tennant discovers that he's not ginger, and here he is, missing out again - disappointed he's still not ginger.
In addition, the Doctor's previous companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and his new one Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) are both redheads..."

I can hear in my head the apologist is thinking "what an absolute dickhead..." and I kind of agree with them. Down with this irrelevancy!!


Leigh

Snowy Snowy Snow Snow

London awash with ground-level tarmac related racism...




Leigh

Flavio Briatore's Ban Overturned

Originally posted on the Formula 1 and Motorsports Archive Centre (January 5th, 2009)
Flavio Briatore's Ban Overturned
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The Drawback of Facebook Campaigns

Some of you may remember a small incident a few weeks ago when the "collective outraged" assembled a Facebook campaign to take Rage Against the Machine to the UK Christmas Number 1 spot ahead of the X-Factor corporate monster.
As was pointed out on a number of occasions, the LA rock band are part of the same corporate giant that spawns X-Factor's faceless noise box's rendering the ideological aspect of the campaign somewhat impotent.
It is well known now that the pro-Rage campaign was successful and the metal group scored the number 1 with "Killing in the Name of"; however as with many things done in a rush or "rage" (sorry, LOG) it has fielded some rather unintended consequences.

A number of Girls Aloud fans have launched a similar Facebook campaign to get the all-girl group back into the top 10 following the failure of their last single, the aptly named "Untouchable". When released in May, the single stalled at the 11th position in the charts and in doing so, halted a record breaking run and became the first Girls Aloud single not to break into the top 10 following 20 consecutive successes.
Now fans aim to restore this run by trying to convince folk everywhere that it needs to be at the top and with this in mind are urging fans to download the song between January 31st and February 7th for it to count to the following week's chart. The Facebook Group with all the relevant details for this campaign can be found here - feel free to join them, will them on or just mock them... whichever.
Regardless of how one feels about this, it marks an interesting turn as to how a section of music fans now think of the singles market.


Leigh

Soundgarden Reform

Soundgarden are to reform for a 2010 tour some thirteen years after they broke up. Following the release of Down on the Upside in 1996 the four-piece went their separate ways with lead-singer Chris Cornell proclaiming in 2005 that

"...it would probably not happen. It's almost like we sealed the lid and said, this is Soundgarden and this is its lifespan, and put it out there. And it looks really great to me. I think getting back together would take the lid off that and then could possibly change what... to me seems like the perfect lifespan of the band. I can't think of any reason to mess with that..."

It makes me wonder how much money and dieing specs of fame changed their minds...
Cornell has played in a couple of truly dreadful projects - such as Audioslave and his own misguided solo venture in the time since, while the rest of the band taken part in various little odd jobs here and there. Dates and other tour info is to come at a later date.


Leigh