Christmas Time

Merry freaking Christmas. I'm off to the pub for the next few days.

By the way, the below festive picture, is a 'light drawing' designed by a dude called Nils Voelker. It's a long story, involving robots. Here's a video of how it's done.

Kid Cudi on Conan

The Year In Culture

So, I've just got around to leafing through the 'new' issue of the Skinny (Wounded Knee is in it by the way), and it's inspired me to do a wee round-up of the year.

As you well know, the music side of things have been wrapped up already over at Elba, so I'll stick to other stuff.

Favourite Film of 2009 - I didn't watch any new films this year. Trainspotting is still good but.
Favourite Actor of 2009 - Him From Corrie With The Googly Eyes
Favourite Actress of 2009 - Kelly MacDonald
Favourite TV show 2009 - River City
Favourite Historical Figure 2009 - Robert the Bruce
Favourite Former Robot Wars Contestants 2009 - Robot the Bruce
Favourite I'm A Celebrity.... Contestant 2009 - Justin
Favourite New York-Based Post-Punk Legend of 2009 - David Byrne
Favourite TV Chef of 2009 - Gordon Ramsay
Favourite Footballer 2009 - Jason Scotland
Favourite Genre of Pie of 2009 - Scotch
Favourite Genre of Egg of 2009 - Scotch
Favourite Genre of Whisky 2009 - Scotch
Favourite Genre of Tape 2009 - Scotch
Favourite Genre of Mist 2009 - Scotch

That clears that up then eh?

I Vote Creed

Yeah, so pushing the 'Best shit of the year', 'Best shit of the decade' thing to the edge of sanity is the usually-credible Rhapsody blog.

They've weighed in with their Best Christian Album of the Decade, which you can shake your head in disbelief at right here!! Either it's satirical genius, or extreme stupidity.

El Baño

Whats up.

For the past few weeks, the guys over at Elba have been compiling the Elba Annual, a bunch of 'Best Of' lists from some interesting characters.

Well, today's special guest is...me.

Check it using this very link.

Twitter Round-Up

It's been a while since I posted up the highlights from our Twitter page, so here goes:

'California English Part2', by Vampire Weekend, which is the B-side to current single Cousins.
Click here

Some quite nice trainers - Nike Air Maxim +1 ND (via Freshness blog)
Click here

Lego wallet, designed by Colorbynumbers (via Designboom). I think 'pretty cool', everyone else thinks 'pretty camp'.
Click here

New Liars tune, Scissors (via Pitchfork)
Click here

RZA decides to mark the 20th anniversary of his career in the music biz by launching a slightly weird art project, seemingly based around him releasing a limited edition of 360 original prints
Click here

Monsterpiece Theatre Presents.....Twin Beaks
Click here

High-quality recording of Fox Gut Daata performing live at Concrete Streets, Dundee
Click here

Interesting 'Year in Names' type of article from Philip Sherburne (via Rhapsody)
Click here

Why I love e-commerce
Click here

New Vans Vault Mocassin Chukkas. Pretty sweet. (via Format)
Click here

DJ set from The Field (via Allez-Allez).
Click here

Filthy Motherfuckers

Is it just me or is there a lot of NSFW music videos cutting about these days? From that Lust for Life by Girls, to Paradise Circus by Massive Attack to Yeasayer's Ambling Alps (and, also, there was that harrowing incident with Kevin Barnes that I don't even want to link to, thank you very much) there's been a lot of filth in 2009.

Which leads a brother to wonder whether there was something in the water.

Or, more accurately, it probably just points to the fact that most artists are now relying solely on the internet for publicity and promotion, and can now follow their artistic instincts to their logical (or illogical) conclusions, rather than worry about what will or won't be able to get aired on MTV etc. Maybe I'm over-thinking things. Maybe 3D just wants to see some more tits in his videos, the dirty bastard.

To prove my point, here's the new video from Raekwon, Pyrex Vision, which was taken from his latest long-player Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Part II. The very-much NSFW video features some homey-seeming ladies cooking up drugs. Lovely.

City Hopper

Yeah, I missed my first ever 'Music Monday' deadline. So, here's a Music Monday post, on a Tuesday. Fuck you I won't do what you tell me etc etc.

So, this week, it's not a new artist, but just a new song by a fairly well-known artist.

City Hopper is the first single to come from Joker's upcoming album (I think - I'm not sure - he's un-fucking-Googleable). It's full of big shiny synth riffs, and standard stuttery drum-patterns. I've really enjoyed what Joker's been up to this year (here's a wee mix he did for Rinse) as I'd been getting a bit bored of dubstep and wonky and funstep and glumstep, so it's just nice that someone's having a sort of new and cleaned up version of it.

Temperatures

I'm going to introduce a Music Monday type of thing. Simply because it's Monday and I'm going to write a bit about music. And also to convince myself to write here more often, and maybe get a wee bit more meat on the blog bones.

So, Temperatures, then eh?

Temperatures are a guitar and drums duo from England (I can't be more specific, since information is pretty thin on the ground) comprised of a guy called James and a guy called Peter. They've got a new record, Eksra, out this week on Ultramarine Records. It's an unhinged abstract noise record (they're so 'noise' in fact, that Thurston Moore is a fan), with lots of rumblings and mumblings. The vast majority of their output sound like it's been recorded underwater, with plenty of screeching feedback and mysterious obscured vocals (the vocals, as well as the flailing jazzy drumming, actually remind me of Vars of Litchi). Which should make them a fairly standard noise duo, but they're actually quite hypnotic and nice. Dark, but nice. Just have a listen. There are two free , untitled, tracks from their latest long player right here.

Diddy On The Shopping Network

WTF!