Live at the witch trials 

Why no albums?

Why do bands sell t-shirts at concerts but not albums?
There must be an economic reason for this. One guess is clothes rarely have tax on them whereas albums do. Another is that the mark up on albums does not make it worthwhile.
Any ideas on why only very small bands sell albums at their gigs?

President Predator

Have you noticed that half the cast of predator hold elected office in America? Jesse "the body" runs skullfuck or some such state and the Governator runs California. Could it be that people really think that they need to be protected from cosmic hunting aliens?

What sort of alien is going to go hunting anyway? Hillbilly yokels that is who. Predator probably has a gun rack on his pickup, a pickup which plays General Lee when the horn is blown. It does indicate something odd with the psyche that the ability to handle a gattling gun against intergalactic rednecks is more highly prized then say IQ.

So start the campaign President Predator 08 for 24:7:365 Nascar and the return of the Dukes of Hazzard. Mind you it would be kinda cool to see those three dots appear on the head of whatever Frenchy they have at the UN next time.

David Kitt: Not fade away

I always thought he was one of the fair trade organic coffee enema bunch but he was really good at the electric picnic.
There was a guy with a "Damian Rice is a cunt" t-shirt who could not move for people agreeing with him, which a least indicates a change of mood on the singer songwriter front.
Kitt uses electronics but to add to the song rather then cover it in noodliness

Up to you
A complete a gem of a song, remember this from the electric picnic. It is hypnotic and haunting and has American teen drama soundtrack written all over it. It is late at night and it is raining as you look out a window and you are trying to make a big decision.

Don't fuck with me
Full of funky menace and regret for what your about to do. Another good song, spent the last three days humming this, not sure how long it will last though

One Clear way
Low key which is refreshing after the 100th radiohead emotionally everything goes up to 11 rip off. Feels like you’re driving on a road with one of those fences that can hypnotise you. The tune is driven by the bass which is good.

Grey day
Same road but you are on a bus. Has that rhythmic banjo "wicked and weird" has.

Sleep
You have taken part in a failed insomnia drug trial that has lead to hallucinations.
Again has that riding on a horse rhythm, laid back and soundtracky.

I know the reason.
Got me hanging on a rope, on a rope, on a rope. Still if you are going to rip off a song at least it is a good one.

Nothing else
Very low key, this one is practically catatonic.

Guilty Prayers, Pointless ends
Nice sweet singer songwritery picking a guitar song. Winsome again, think you need to be in a sitting on a sofa with your duvet mood for these two songs.

Say no more
Probably the only pogoable song on the album sounds great live but does not really fit here.

With you
Back on the horse heading into the sunset. Lyrics sound like some sort of message song sung by Elmo. Not a great end to a good album.

A bit of a low-fi low-key diamond this album. Download a few of his tunes on myspace if you have not heard him before. If you like what you hear the album can be got from his website.

Firing Pluto

Will yanks never learn? Every couple of weeks one of them, a disgruntled newly fired employee comes back into work and kills all his old co-workers. Now they go and fire Pluto as a planet.

Say you have been hanging around the Kupler belt freezing your equator off the only bit of interest you have is the occasional nearby visit with Neptune. Then some four eyed assholes come and give you a pink slip for a job you have been doing for 70 years. They do not even fire you in person but over the news. You are going to be pretty pissed off. I would make a detour straight for their house with some crushing in mind.

So nerds unless you want this cartoon monikered mass of rocks and his best mate the ferryman of death raining vengeance upon us can we just give him his old job back?

Steve Irwin is dead

I am really upset by this. Not because of the ambiguous guilt of encouraging and rewarding dangerous behaviour, not because of the loss of a husband and father of a young family. Because it means one of the three good shows on television is gone. Instead of the human kinetic bouncing ball of enthusiasm, knowledge and just plain fun we are going to have a new reality TV show called “fornication island”. In this a bunch of self obsessed egotistical whiney worthless babies you’ve never seen before rut like caged monkeys passing on some sort of fame spreading STD.

How about this for a show. We get 10 people on the transplant list one needing kidneys and a heart and another lungs etc. We then have a competition to see which one is killed to get organs for the rest of them. I know I am going to get a comment telling me this has already happened.

Steve Irwin was a 100% top fuckin madman and it is a sad day that he is gone. I am off to the pub to get drunk lest I end up watching some television and wishing Armageddon upon mankind.

Jape

I really wanted to see this band. Heard some of there songs on their myspace page. Great gig really happy attitude in the crowd. Jape are the best band in Ireland at the moment and probably for a long time.

Their last song "I was a man" had that shiney metallic taste you always get from Joy Division or sometimes from Talking Heads at their best. Prince had it on “Sign of the times” but then bottled it and started singing about being reincarnated as a dolphin. Yes they are that good.

The drummer appears to be a robot. The bass player and keyboard guy have that I work in a record shop muso look. David Kitt was on sampler dressed up like a beastie boy circa 1986 all white socks and shoes leather jacket and clownish hat. I always thought he was one of those “The sea knows my pain” sensitive, wet, gay whales for nuclear disarmament, arms are meant for hugging, carbon neutral, groupies of questionable hygiene singer songwriter types but both this and his other gig on the weekend were really funky and cool. The lead guitarist/singer looks like your slight mate that no one fucks with because they know they would wake up smelling petrol and looking at a match.

There is a cover by the Raconteurs of one of their songs on their website. I imagine being covered by the Raconteurs feels like being a rapper and getting name checked by God.

Warlords of Pez Electric Picnic

Best wedding band ever
These were not the best act at the electric picnic, saying that would be like giving the gold 100 metres medal to the guy who is not only on drugs but roller-skates and has rockets strapped to his back. Any act trying to compete with this crowd are going to go down in flames.

If you are in a major car crash and this band has a gig, awaken from your coma, pull your breathing tube out and crawl on whatever stumps of limbs you have remaining to see them.

www.warlordsofpez.com

Kablooey Email Does Not Work

When digital media is shown to a user at some point it becomes analogue. This means for example that drm protected music will be converted to sound waves that can then be recorded. Because of this digital copy protection technologies can never work.
One such technology is Kablooey mail. This is an email protection service designed to prevent an email being copied. You send an email and the recipient is directed to a web page. If they press any keys that could be used to copy the email it is deleted. The email self destructs after being viewed for a set length of time.
The analogue portion here is the light leaving the screen. A photograph taken of the email copies its contents.
It is also possible to copy images on your computer without pressing any keys. For example parental monitoring tools capture screenshots or screenvideos without constant user interaction..
The following image shows a VMware capture of a kablooey session.



The creators of this email claim that an image is too easily modified to serve of proof of an emails contents. While all digital content is alterable in this way the widespread use of photoshop makes it obvious how digital images can be modified. However the contents of a video as can be obtained from vmware or parental control software are less easily modified and so would have similar reliability as email.

Morrissey Gig Marley Park Aug 22nd

Morrissey

An hour and a half of theatrical, shirt tearing, mic whipping genius.
The new songs sounded really good, kinda claustrophobic and funky like the band were "rocking in" if that makes sense. Life is a pigsty in particular was great, especially considering one of the instruments had to be poured mid song.

He stopped a song to tell the security guards rugby who tackled one of those guys who tries to hug him to “steady on”. He seemed genuinely concerned which is surprising and nice given his usual curmudgeonly image. It was also surprising given the little known fact that all the people dragged off by security men are put in big punch bags which Morrissey practices his Mai Thai roundhouse kicks on after the show.

All the restaurants served only vegetarian food at the gig. I was wondering initially "can he do that?" then remembered that he is Morrissey and he can do whatever the hell he wants.
One of the restaurateurs told me that the reason there was no meat was not Morrissey's vegetarianism, he had eaten every meat pie in the place by lunchtime but that he had gathered together all the kebab mince to make an anatomically correct meat wife whose moist flesh he would befoul after the show.

That reminds me that I forgot to bring a giant poster of Morrissey with a meat pie with the caption "meat is magic". How cool would it be to get Morrissey to beat you up? Seeing as can no longer lose a fight to Gandhi, Morrissey has to be the best person to get beaten up by left.

Anyway much better concert then I had expected. These things can easily turn into everyone goes to the pub for the new stuff where the oldie sings about his love of jogging but actually the new stuff sounded the best.


Dandy Warhol’s
All the band up front grinning away and throwing shapes. Gig was way too short which is always a sign it was good. Still I missed loads of their great songs, genius, last junkie on earth the first one on come down etc. I have not heard there latest album but they still have to be winners of “best band to go on the piss with” award.

Magic numbers
Not nearly as ugly as I had heard, completely normal looking bunch, ok maybe look a bit more like cult members then the average due to the beatific smiles.
Bass player is really good, simple solid happy countryish playing. Other girl has a great voice; you do not notice it as much on record maybe you just assume that all these are faked.
You know the way roadies look like really rough let themselves go versions of the band? I was assuming some spheres would be rolling round the stage occasionally gaffer taping stuff but alas no. Oh and the new single sounds really bouncy and good.

Iraqi civil war

Between 3 and 4 thousand people died in the irish civil war. The population of the island at the time was around 4 million.
So at most one in a thousand Irish people dies in our civil war.
The population of Iraq is 29 million. At least 40 thousand Iraqies have died there since the invasion.
Iraq is in a civil war.