recepticle=Sunday, October 31, 2004
hallowe'en in christmas town
so, what do you think of my halloween skin? i'm keeping it up here until at least november fifth, by which time jack pumkinhead may be replaced by a burning guy fawkes. after all, what could be more worth celebrating than the fact that we burned a man alive?
BALERT
i broked my comments. at least four days ago. they's now fixed. i can't believe none of you told me. contact form, you bitches!
- posted by lawrie at 1:17 AM ~ comments
Thursday, October 28, 2004
before i forget
did i ever tell you who killed john f kennedy? no? well then here it is: man's last secret. apart from, you know, the perpetual motion engine that's powered by smiles.
jfk was shot at from at least three different locations, but the bullet that killed him came from his driver, a secret service agent. he fired a recoilless, electrically charged, gas-powered gun (specifically built by the cia for point-blank assasinations) which fired an exploding bullet filled with shellfish poison. why shellfish poison? because if you shoot the president of the united states of america and he doesn't die.... looo-cy! chu got some 'splainin to do!
so why didn't jackie o say anything? well, she was surrounded by secret service men, the very people responsible for the murder of her husband, and her children were being looked after by members of the same agency. would you say anything in those circumstances? i didn't think so.
i forgot i knew that.
- posted by lawrie at 1:57 PM ~ comments
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
the last gunslinger of music dies
john peel, veteran of british radio, champion of unknown bands and quite possibly the last man who cared, died today aged 65.
i emailed john peel not so long ago to tell him about deerhoof, and he actually emailed me back to say thanks. not so long ago, a friend's band were playing in london and emailed john peel to let him know. when they got back after the gig, there was a message on the answer machine from john peel saying "sorry i couldn't make to to your gig tonight, but i had a radio show to record and couldn't get out in time. hope it went well."
how many nationally famous and revered radio djs would do that? would actually care that much? that guy will never, ever be replaced.
- posted by lawrie at 1:58 PM ~ comments
Friday, October 22, 2004
ta daa!
ahem. i got bored of the old layout, and so decided on a sparkly pink one with a mild, mulled winter flavour to it instead. any bugs reported would be much appreciated. and yes, i know the comments template doesn't match, but it's 1.32am and lawrie wants to curl up with a mug of chocolate horlicks and the final dark tower novel. *cough*englishgeek*cough*.
- posted by lawrie at 1:30 AM ~ comments
Monday, October 18, 2004
band guide #1: how not to run an event
i hate ugly kid joe. one of the main reasons i hate ugly kid joe was because of the artwork for their ep 'ugly as they wanna be'. so, where did this assault on these early nineties one-hit-wonder-makers come from?
i was reminded of ugly kid joe when i saw the logo for 'gig' 'organisers' maxrock. they were the fuckwads responsible for putting on the most recent gig we played, at edwards no. 8 in birmingham. there were to be 18 other bands, and a contract to be agreed and signed. let me outline to you the more immediate problems with the contract:
1. it was made out to a band called 'weeble'. that's not us.
2. "...and agree to the terms of business included". no terms of business were included.
3. "backline will be supplied" apart from cymbal stands, hi-hat stands, snare stands, bass pedals, or a drum stool. or a competent sound engineer.
4. "...sign and return this contract". there was nowhere to sign.
5. tips for selling tickets: "...to parents, school friends, family, tutors, mates down the pub." fucking genius.
the ticket situation was ever-so slightly full of shit as well. tickets were to be sold at £5 to our friends, parents, and mates down the pub, who were then expected to travel to birmingham to watch us play for twenty minutes, and told to fuck off out of the venue at 10pm. we were then to hand in all unsold tickets and all of the money to maxrock who would, if we sold more than fifteen tickets, give us one shiny pound for each ticket. however, if we sold fewer than fifteen, we received nothing. we saw no reason to inflict our friends or ourselves with this burden, so made no attempt to sell any tickets at all. apart from one to our guitarist's girlfriend.
as we were handing in our tickets, the organiser asked "how many tickets did you sell?". when we told him, he looked me straight in the eye, as though i were some kind of retarded 15-year old boy who just got a squire bass for christmas and said "no one will watch you, you know." oh noes! say it ain't so, mister man! say we'll be adored and revered by a bunch of kids who came to see their mates bands!
squatting next to the maxrock robin cook lookalike (herein to be known as 'mr. fuckmonkey') was his wife, who took one look at john's girlfriend hannah and said that no non-band members were allowed in for two and a half hours. i explained that she was helping me in with a bag, and would leave straight away. temporarily allowed to pass, the woman actually chased us into the venue ten seconds after we got inside and kicked hannah out, saying "i'll think about letting you in later". balling my hands into fists, a blood-red glaze creeping over my eyes, i stormed over to the woman as she was regailing her fellow monkeys with her amazing story about kicking hannah out, about to explain that they could stick their twenty minute slot up their unspeakably voluminous asses when mark stepped in and used his shiny smile and charming enthusiasm to settle the situation. bastard.
needless to say, the gig was fucking awful, the equipment was clearly a bad practical joke, and the sound, on-stage at least, sounded like a bee in a jar. getting anally raped. by a blue whale. wearing a ribbed condom. for all time.
so, if you're in a band, i implore you to never, ever, ever deal with maxrock. unless you particularly enjoy having an otter with its claws out, squeezing your nuts ever-so slowly whilst singing "i know a song that will get on your nerves" in a reedy, high-pitched voice.
- posted by lawrie at 1:04 PM ~ comments
Thursday, October 14, 2004
i've got images, images of you
if you would like to see physical (or, more accurately, digital) evidence of lawrie bringing the mosh, then i refer you to these images of our most recent gig.
um, rock the fuck out.
- posted by lawrie at 2:11 PM ~ comments
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
the post with no title
did i ever tell you that this is my favourite time of year? trees cease to be the stoic green behemoths of summer and become volcanoes of autumnal leafy joy; light seems to take on a sepia-tone quality that can only ever be created by mixing exactly the right amount of afternoon october sunlight and a temperature that's just on the right side of bitingly cold. when it snows just about surpasses the overall feeling of yayness, but snow is less of a season, more of a happenstance.
i always feel that much cooler and smarter in the autumn, too. it gives me a reason to dig out my warm clothes, which are so much more hip than my summer ones, and wear my ever-growing collection of outrageously groovy jackets (not all at once though, you understand). i want to go out right now and buy a whole load of wintery clothes and a lovely stripey scarf. then i want it to be 1976 and for everyone to walk around in really ace flares and three-quarter length jackets with the collar up.
i think i want to be robert redford in 'the way we were'.
- posted by lawrie at 1:34 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
he can't get no resect
rodney dangerfield died aged 82. rodney dangerfield introduced me to 'any way you want it' by journey as he danced on the golf course in 'caddyshack'. "i could tell my parents hated me. my bath toys were a toaster and a radio." that guy was the indisputable king of self-deprecating one-liners. you got my respect, man.
- posted by lawrie at 5:11 PM ~ comments
Monday, October 04, 2004
it's at moments like these...
...that i wonder, "just what the fuck am i doing?" observe:
FROM: lawrie
TO: ITV scheduling office
SUBJECT: Quincy M.E
As a massive fan of Quincy M.E., I was more than disappointed when, almost as soon as I discovered that you were once again showing it, you took it off the air in favour of the thoroughly rubbish Moving Day. When you were showing Quincy, it was actually the only TV show I would watch during my lunch break, so now my viewing is currently down to zero hours a week. When are you going to start showing Quincy again?
FROM: ITV duty office
TO: lawrie
The programme is what is known as a filler programme which means that there is no regular slot for it and priority is given to new network programmes. However, your comments have been noted here at ITV.
FROM: lawrie
TO: itv bitch
a filler programme? filler? how would you like me to fill your ass with lead from my nine, bitch? yes that's right, i'm down in the hoodie with my gangster crew of homeboys. i'll pop a hat in your ass if you diss my boy quincy again.
FROM: ITV mailer-daemon
TO: lawrie
Error: this address has been blocked. If you feel this report to be an error, please email no-one@fucking.cares
FROM: lawrie
TO: bitches
i know where you live.
- posted by lawrie at 11:17 PM ~ comments
Sunday, October 03, 2004
i knew this day would come
over two years ago jon and i put an archanoid clone online: mechabreakout: ultimate brick destruction (click here for joy) and i have been sporadically modifying ever it since. i found out just this very minute that some argentinian portal decided to steal our game. not only that, but they clearly didn't bother trying to play it: go ahead, click on "Arkanoid Break Kout" under the 'clasicos' section on the right. see that whole warning thing about not being able to play the game because it's been stolen from us? that's because it's been fucking stolen from us.
this is exactly why you can't have the falklands back.
- posted by lawrie at 10:15 PM ~ comments
Saturday, October 02, 2004
robot rock
the title of this post refers both to the colour of fire track currently playing and to the iron giant which was on this afternoon. and what a fucking excellent movie it is (please note: if you are a small child who found this site by searching for 'the iron giant', please disregard my use of the intensive adverb 'fucking' and tell you teacher that the iron giant is simply 'sweet as a nut').
the content of this post refers to the recent mobo awards. amidst the news of the gay rights protests, mobo were quite sly about slipping in the new award category: best ringtone. when nominees usher and outkast were invited for this prestigious honour, who's surprised when they told mobo to go fuck themselves?
- posted by lawrie at 10:55 PM ~ comments