CLUBLAND

why is it that any happy hardcore/ hard trance/ hardest dance/ hardstyle advert on the hits just leaves me confused, let alone hungry for more beats?

the advert pattern goes:
-blurb about how essential the mix is
-men who look like the temp guys who always get sacked from work who look forgettable talk about how essential the mix is
- underage children who are just looking not to get knocked back from a venue
talk about how essential the mix is

interspersed with this is literally 2 seconds of a speeded up vocal, followed by 5 seconds of moderate gabber techno / hoover synth pop, accompanied by a 3d logo of the artist name ( see ' STORMTROOPER' or 'DANNY REZJAM') clad all o'er in fluorescent yellow piping.

THIS THEN REPEATS FOR UP TO 5 MINUTES

WITH THE SAME SYSTEM: CONSTISTENT 7 SECOND MONTAGES OF BOSS TUNAGE BY FANTASTIC ARTISTS IN THE HARDCORE WORLD CHECK IT OUT YOU CANT GO RONG

im not gonna buy. im hoping to cash in on pitchforkmedia's italodisco revival by xeroxing all the glass candy and chromatics stuff on gameboy before the NME slash all over it with their massive paws .

p.s i think people who like happy hardcore are the same people who like cars. i dont like cars either.

WHEN YOU BELIEF

predictable christmas number one here .
for this week, i decided to do everything live, instead of recording the backing separately and then singing over the top of it twice. so what you are hearing is me turning on the gameboy and then my very first attempt at singing this song, having listened to leons version numerous times... i think youll agree i definately nailed every note perfectly in the chorus.
i suppose the reason why the vocals are really low in all the recordings is because i dont have much faith in my voice.
my best tricks are:
shouting
fake robert smith.
but i think the whole point of this project is how i interpret and perform the song that can be seen as the most popular among the uk record buying public, and in exposing my weaknesses, rather than masking them it gives it more of a personal feel. so i think i will put the vocal track higher from now on, and try putting less effects on them.unless its properly shit.

the blackadder christmas special is a bit weak. if its on over christmas i probably wouldnt bother watching it. and id probably actually avoid the hits this time of year. cascada have taken a midi- version of last christmas by wham! and whacked a house beat on it. its really good, it blew my mind. and avid merrion just keeps getting funnier, do you not think! YOU SHOULD CHACK OUT HIS SONG HE HAS A GUY FROM THE BULLSEYE ON IT DO YOU REMEMBER BULLSEYES IT WAS POPLULR IN THE 80S LIKE CALVIN HARRISON AND IT HAS DAVINO MAKCAL SHE IS THE PERESTNER FROM BIG BROTHER IF YOU CAN RECALL IT.
If you really need a cover version of 'Last Christmas' this year, GOTO80's commodore 64 version( along with some other chiptune artistsrenditions of festive 'faves') can be found here. have a good one people.

MERRY X-MAS

merry christmas to everyone.

here is a cover of mariah carey that might get you in the christmas mood. no dice on my front ,im afraid. gonna do some minimal wrapping of christmas presents tonight in some vain attempt to GET FUCKING FESTIVE. im my boredom this week, ive done leon jacksons song, im pretty damn sure its gonna be number 1, so ill upload that tommorow so i can have a few days holiday from gameboys, rush-released cover versions, predictable re-releases, and have a few well earned days rest with the folks drinking and watching 'the hits' til the wee small hours. then ill get back to sheffield, maybe watch 'the hits' and have some dutch style lager from spar. for a change.

thank you to everyone who has read the blog so far, i really appreciate the comments. hope you all have a wonderful christmas break.

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISMAN IS YOUR

p.s apologies for the wait to download these links, its only a temporary measure until jack returns from his holiday ruddy-faced and heavily laden with access to his webspace.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LOSE EVERYTHING AND WIN EVERYTHING

LEONA IS DEAD LONG LIVE LEON. In the short stop gap between the inevitable X-Factor christmas number 1, we have this little lad. A charity cover of what a wonderful world, by eva cassidy and katie melua, which begs the question: is it acceptable to fancy someone who is dead? i totally would with eva cassidy, if you know what i mean. slight confusion this week involving me listening first to the actual song, and then to the my bloody valentine cover of this song to get 'in the mood', and getting to the end before i realised that it was a completely different song ( we have all the time in the world) oh well. regarding that my bloody valentine cover, its nowhere near as good as you think it would be. but its still fucking awesome. and its one of the two things they have done post loveless ( their wire cover is unbelievably brilliant). so heres my delay drenched cover that i did post-confusion.

YOU ARNT LOU BEGA

my usual cohort jack fabian was unavailable for recording, so basically its my fault entirely.
onto recent music news, this leon lad seemed to win x factor, and there is a lot of contraversy regarding jammed lines according to the daily mail (WAS X FACTOR FIXED BY POLISH SEX GANG?DIANA SAYS 'NO TO SAME DIFFERENCE', and so on)and the gaggle of women in the kitchen on Floor 1 . personally i found many parallels in their inability to meet customers expectations during the x factor voting process, with that of the recent installation of new telephony throughout the call centre i work at. both seemed to be badly planned, and ill-fitting of the requirements of the end-user. rhydian has apparently just inked a deal with simon cowell for one million rods. good lad. didnt see that coming at all. totally blew my mind like 'who shot jr oh no it was a dream i am in the shower' shit.

THE LEON JACKSON SINGLE IS 4 POUNDS
HE WAS BORN IN 1988 THOUGH AND THAT YEAR IS ALRIGHT

really buzzing off covering that next week.

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE

bah. i hate the way the bbc uk top 40 takes until monday night to properly update with last weeks positions and highest new entries. thinking i was really clever, i got really excited by the fact that mariah careys 'all i want for christmas is you' was really high up, and literally salivated at the chance to try and render the boss phil spector esque style production on the gameboys 4 channels. with no reverb option its probably gonna be the case that i would have just ramped up the white noise filter and make it sound like jesus and mary chain. i even drew the single cover. so ill just finish it as a christmas treat for you all.

anyway. leona lewis is still hanging out at number 1, so i have to cover elvis again. trying to find new ways of covering old songs is fun. for this one:

- i didnt listen to it

- i didnt get any kind of tabulature

i simply took the lyrics and thought what kind of song i would write to fit these.

i just took these from one of the numerous soft porn and lyrics websites which are strewn across the web. i sung these from 007lyrics ( i dont know why james bond is involved in this either) :

Lord almighty,I feel my temperature rising

Higher higher

Its burning through to my soul

Girl, girl, girl

You gonna set me on fire

My brain is flaming

I dont know which way to go

Your kisses lift me higher

Like the sweet song of a choir

You light my morning sky

With burning love

Ooh, ooh, ooh,I feel my temperature rising

Help me, Im flaming

I must be a hundred and nine

Burning, burning, burning

And nothing can cool me

I just might turn into smoke

But I feel fine

Cause your kisses lift me higher

Like a sweet song of a choir

And you light my morning sky

With burning love

Its coming closer

The flames are reaching my body

Please wont you help me

I feel like Im slipping away

Its hard to breath

And my chest is a-heaving

Lord almighty,Im burning a hole where I lay

Cause your kisses lift me higher

Like the sweet song of a choir

You light my morning sky

With burning love

With burning love

Ah, ah, burning love

Im just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

how i interpreted this was:

the opening line 'Lord almighty,I feel my temperature rising' is HELLA SASSY, and the lyrics are all about feeling really warm around women.

So, i assembled a crack team of my most 'sexy' and 'hipshaking' musical tricks:

-a gameboy sample of the cowbell setting from the TR-808 ( similar to that used in ' I wanna dance with somebody' by Kevin Costners piece in that film.)

-a slippery lead line like all good G-Funk songs ( aint nothin but a g thang, anything off doggystyle by snoop dogg, most of all eyez on me by 2 pac)

and, cough:

-a 12 strong bar of back to back hand claps ( this reminded me of stock aitken and waterman (SAW). but then that reminded me of sam fox, who they wrote 'nothings gonna stop me now with'. i thought of sam fox briefly( around five minutes, enough time to source some badly rendered zx spectrum soft porn of her with her chest out) in terms of being 'sexy' and then dismissed this as a bad job. shes no leona. or amelle. on a side note, that song, along with most other SAW songs have incredibly underwhelming choruses which dont kick in or get high enough to really sound great. they kind of just grimace a bit . make it seem like they are trying.)

so the song is here: ELLLLLLLLLLLLVVVVVVVVVESSIS

one final thing i noticed. you know when a vocal just leaps out of a page, and makes you think ' how did you know how i feel? how do you know me so well? i dont even know you' and your jaw just drops. and you cant stop listening to that one bit because it sums up every point of your life thus far, and you feel like you have found what you are looking for? this happened to me. im so lucky. the line is.

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

Besides being freezing and alone in an attic room with a broken radiator, and weighing about 8 and a half stone, i think this pretty much sums me up.

Its quite funny though the number of people who claim to not like pop music but then can always name at least one or two pop songs in the last 3 months that they have listened to that they think are amazing. the thing is though, its probably the same for any genre of music, if you think about it. how many stand out, stand alone tracks from albums, blogs, podcasts, mobile phones on buses have you heard in the last 3 months that you think ' yes, this is just right'? there is a lot of good music. but there is only a very small amount of it in any category which is amazing. most of its just fine.

PROPER TURGID

this is the highest new entry: elvis fucking presley with 'an american trilogy'. no, me neither. other notable highest new entries ( read rereleases) include:
-driving home for christmas
-its the most wonderful time of the year
in christmas related news, i no longer have the ability to recognise when christmas decorations have been put up . it took me 2 hours to realise why i was getting pieces of dangling crepe paper stuck in my poor quality beard. i put this down to the council erecting the 'seasons greetings' decoration outside my window in OCTOBER.

LISTEN TO ELVIS HERE PLEASE

seeing as this was a re-release , and im very cynical about the fact that a song that no one i asked seemed to know what it went like.. i refused to listen to this. i simply took the lyrics, and chords, and made something up around this. if anyone can be bothered listening to the original properly and let me know how close i am do so. i opened it up on youtube to watch the video but then got bored and promptly sacked it right off.

seeing as the chart is looking towards the past a lot this time of year, it brings me onto the topic of the song 'heartbroken' by T2 featuring Jodie Aysha. and the subject of bassline niche- the new genre sweeping the nation. having worked in a used car dealership washing cars on the forecourt listening to radio 1 throughout the 'glory days' of uk garage circa '99: dj luck and mc neat, dj pied piper, fucking oxide and neutrino ( IVE JUST BEEN SHOT EVERYONE STOP GETTING SHOT WTF) i fail to see how this differs in anyway, or has developed in this 8 year gap? my other theory is that music trends are gradually turning in on themselves. evidence:

the advent the electro clash scene around 99 - mainly piss poor weak 80's revival. 20 year gap (approximately)

the advent of''nu-rave' - approximately say 15-16 years post the whole original tent, gloves, glowstick, global hypercolour, shamen etc.

So, as you see, revivals are coming in thick and fast at more regular intervals. I am hypothesising the following to occur in the new year:

January 2008
THE RETURN OF NU- RAVE
- 33 1/3 book on the making of Enter Shikari's seminal album 'Ride the Skies',
a brand new Shitdisco retrospective compilation with extensive liner notes and recollections from one of the most scottish ones. New Young Pony Club to reform to play coachella for 14 million dollars. Calvin Harris bankrupts Creation following an ill-advised, poorly selling covers album , the front cover of which features him in drag.

February 2008
THE RETURN OF LEONA LEWIS
"All Tommorows parties are thrilled that Leona Lewis has agreed to put aside their differences to perform her classic album 'Spirit' in its entirety. The album, released in late 2007, shaped an entire generation, and its breathtaking vision and influence has filtered down into so many of the groundbreaking artists we hear today: Rhydian, them two big lads who won tv programs once, Kerry Katona, that one from hollyoaks (any), the one who went out with teddy sheringham and still won, George Bests, menswe@r, north and south ( NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA - NO SWEAT)." TICKETS £25 EXCLUDING BOOKING FEE.STANDING ONLY

ive went off again so im just going ok