Mr & Mrs Coates

Last week, Tuesday to be precise, Barry's wife Yuka flew over from Japan to start a new life here with Mr Coates. Last night was the first time we had the pleasure of Yuka's company, we had heard so much about her as Barry went quietly mad waiting for her over the past few months, and I had had email conversations with her, so this was quite a momentous occasion. And lets be frank, when your best mate gets married and brings his wife over, you don't fanny about. Hel made a couple of lovely cakes (walnut & date and lemon & poppyseed trivia fans..) and we decided a bottle of champagne was necessary. A quick toast and some cake later and we got chatting.

Yuka had come bearing gifts from the Land of the Rising Sun, for me, the most phenomenal yukata (kimono) and some astonishing socks replete with 'toe holes'! For Hel, similarly intriguing socks and various cosmetic paraphenalia! It wasn't long before it was time to humiliate Barry with college photo's, the shot of him in a red dress was a particular winner with Mrs Coates.

Mindy was a great hit too with her 'I'm so badly treated' performance, successfully hoodwinking Yuka into believing we were animal torturers of the worst kind.

Yuka was lovely, and maybe a little shy, but I have no doubt, as I said for the toast, that they will have many happy years ahead of them as man and wife. Hel and I wish them the very best for the future. We're looking forward to enjoying their company for years to come.

Who wins some nice awards 'n' that...

The superb first series episodes The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances won the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) at the 2006 World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim, California on Saturday, besting two other episodes which were also nominated for the same category -- Paul Cornell's "Father's Day" and Rob Shearman's "Dalek" -- as well as an episode of the SF series "Battlestar Galactica". The Hugo Awards are the science fiction community's most prestigious honors, awarded by the World Science Fiction Society at each annual convention; the "long form" Dramatic Hugo was given to the 2005 film "Serenity".

MySpace

Most people in 2006 will know what MySpace is. MySpace's tagline is 'Space for Friends'. Essentially it started life as a place for people to upload profiles of themselves, with pictures, blogs and the likes. You could then build a network of 'friends' by inviting people to link to their page too. Now it is better know as a space for musicians to share their tracks with the world, and build a core of fans in a similar way.

Rich pointed me in its direction some months back. Although I already had a page I hadn't done anything serious with it - in fact I'd forgotten about it. So far, as a means of airing music and building up relationships with like minded musicians and fans its been a wonderful exercise. CD's have been swapped, remixes talked about, egos stroked with admiring comments from new listeners. If anyone would like to check out my page, and hear the four tracks currently on there, go to:

www.myspace.com/straightman1

Ego swelling aside, its also been an excellent way to discover other musicians out there, and in that regard its also been an eye opener that so much unsigned talent exists. Here are my recommendations - remember, you can listen to these musicians for free, so please give them a try (click on the names techno imbeciles):

Float Method - very spacial, very dark, very ambient

Amorphix - Dark ambience with a classical twist

Ketsad - Cutups and beats

Deaf Blind - Rich; how does one catagorise him?

Star Gazing - Check out the title track...

The Surgens - rockabilly madness from Pat and chums.

Steve Lawson - Superb bassisit, think jazz and ambient

Vacuole Eyes - More ambient beauty

"Ain't no goodbyes...ain't no goodbyes...ain't no goodbyes.."

Excited boy here.

The Art of Noise boxset 'And what have you done with my body god?' arrived on Wednesday. This was a four CD set and booklet, covering Art of Noise's earliest years whilst a quintet with Paul Morley and Trevor Horn at ZTT records and before they splintered into a threesome and went to more commercial climes at China Records. These CD's, aswell as covering all EP's, singles and albums released at that time (1983 - '85) contained hitherto unreleased demos, early versions, recording sessions, samples, alternative versions and even the very first track JJ and Gary created, the track that an excited Trevor Horn took to the head of EMI and later became Beatbox, a record that launched a thousand ships over the decades to come, with its huge beat and arbitrary noises. It was these unreleased curios that really whet my appetite and I was very excited about.

As expected, some of the tracks were very rough, works in progress. From a creative standpoint, its interesting to listen to these and hear how their creative processes worked. Standouts for me are Close to the Edge, an early version of Close (to the Edit), sans 'dums', a version of Moments in love called Moments in Bed, that has Marilyn Monroe 'boo boo be doo' samples throughout, Whose Afraid of Scale and the sessions of Anne Dudley playing classical pieces on an organ, recorded in a converted church. The intention of this was to incorporate the playing into tracks at a later date, but all that was eventually sampled was the sound of her footsteps as she walked across the woodern floor!

I would love to know who the stoned pillock is, that has clearly been secretly recorded, in the studio, explaining to the band what they need to do to a track with comments like 'I don't know if you should use words...like J t'aime' and 'as long as you keep to the side...' and then finishes up with 'I went for some of that accupunture last night', which illicits a urine extracting 'good' from JJ.

I read the booklet as I listened though, a bag of Dorito's at my side, each artist giving thoughts and comments on each track and their memories of the time, from those early days to the split where Anne, JJ and Gary stormed out of a recording session in best rock n roll style.

Overall a very enjoyable experience for me and I would suggest, any other AON fan, hungry for 'new' material and an insight into the early, intimate moments of his/her favourite band. Not sure it would appeal to anyone else, too many variations on tracks with minor differences to be of interest to the casual listener, but then I don't believe that that is the intended audience anyway.

Of course, in the digital age, these things could never exist and the bands of today are unlikely to be releasing this sort of material in twenty years time. If something doesn't work now, it is gone in the click of a mouse, and will never have made it to tape along the way.

New beverage routine

For the past month or so, I have changed my routine on the caffeine front, with results that I am really impressed with. I am someone who gets tired very easily, always have been, dark days, sugar come downs, too much caffeine, all conspire to destroy me mentally, to the point where, come 5pm, I can barely string two thoughts together.

So, I thought I'd try a few things. Firstly, I cut out Diet Coke, which in later years I have found myself rather dependent on. Haven't touched the stuff now for ages. Which is probably for the best, because caffeine aside, its just full of shit that rots your guts. Secondly, I have reduced my daily coffee intake from about 6 a day, to one in the morning, usually with breakfast. Now, if I want a hot bevy in the afternoon, I have a green tea. An acquired taste, granted, but so are olives and beer. Its also full of anti-oxidants - every little helps kids. Finally, I'm now drinking 3 litres of water a day.

A combination of these things has made a real different to my energy levels and health. My complexion has improved and although I still feel a bit knackered, its not so severe. Strangely, and maybe not suprisingly, my insides feel a bit cleaner too.

Anyone else out there suffer like I do? Give this a try, I noticed a result in a few days...

Modern Toss - Mr Tourette & the Golf resort

Mr Tourette is another classic recurring character in Modern Toss. To cut a long story short, every week he is asked to paint a sign of some sort, the results are usually obscene...