Invasion of the Squirrels

Mrs Oonagh Nutt, from Moira in Co. Down, has had her house invaded by squirrels. Far from being cute little fellows with cuddly tails, these squirrels are monsters. "Up close they are quite frightening", reports Mrs Nutt. "They look like puppy dogs with big hands, they growl and bark at you, they're vicious things. They'll go for you".

A member of the League of Red Squirrels has pointed out that Mrs Nutt's home has been invaded by sinister grey squirrels. "You'd want to watch your nuts with those b----s around", commented the red squirrel, speaking on conditions of anonymity.

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Live: School of Seven Bells

I went to this on another's recommendation. School of Seven Bells proved to be somewhat enjoyable but not ultimately that great. As a band, they seem to be part of that shoegazing revival you hear about (and not the Krautrock revivals they were linked to in pre-publicity), but I felt that they were not really bringing that much to the table, straying worryingly close to Curve-tribute-band territory. Do not get me wrong, I love me Curve, and I love me shoegazing, but I am not really down with a total lack of innovation.

Looking up at what I have written and thinking back to the show, I am maybe being a bit hard on the School of Seven Bells (a band composed of two twin sisters, apparently from Argentina, and some bloke, all of them uncommonly small). The concert was in and of itself enjoyable enough, but the lack of that spark of originality stopped it crossing over into actual greatness. It was nevertheless interesting to watch how the band made music. Everything seemed a bit pre-programmed, with the guitarists strumming the same chord over and over to add a bit of texture).

You might wonder, then, why I bothered buying the band's album Alpinism. Well, they were selling it at a most agreeable price, and I thought maybe if I listened to them on record I would maybe get the point of them more. I cannot say that I have. On a first listen I was a bit wary off enjoying it too much in case my beloved gave me a pimp slap. It seemed a bit better when I listened to some of it in her absence, but still only in an a somewhat-average-electronica kind of way. I may try it on headphones in the future and see what comes of it then.

One thought that occurred to me later was that while they sound a bit like Curve, they also sound a lot like that well-known shoe-gazing outfit t.A.T.u.. Or at least I thought some of their stuff sounds like the production on the t.A.T.u. version of How Soon Is Now?.

The little known Watchmen cartoon

where I saw it first

Film: "The Good, The Bad, & The Weird"

This is a Korean-made film largely set in Manchuria during the 1930s, a period when that territory was under Japanese occupation. The film follows three rival Korean gunslingers (broadly modelled on the characters played by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef*, and Eli Wallach in the famous Sergio Leone film) as they fight against each other and various other actors (including nomadic warriors, urban gangs, sinister criminals, and the Japanese army) to locate a map that holds the key to the location of unspecified riches. It features a number of incredible set pieces, of which the multi-factioned shoot out on a train at the start sets the scene. The Mad Max style chase that comes just before the three-way shoot out is also rather impressive. So I recommend this highly, if you like fun.

*Though in this film, it is like they got a Korean analogue of Prince in to play that role.

Live: Front 242

I almost expected old Frank's APA pal Nick Drage to show up at this, as it was the kind of event that featured a lot of people in shaved heads and black combat gear. Other members of the audience seemed a bit metally. I was there despite little or no familiarity with the music of Front 242, but I recognised them as a legendary name and hoped they would prove something like as interesting as the Slovenian industrial sensations Laibach.

It is interesting, I suppose to play compare and contrast with Laibach and Front 242. They are both from the continent*, both play industrial music, and both go for it with extreme visual appearances. Front 242 do rather look like the paramilitary wing of some dodgo movement, with their shaven hair, black garb, and dark sunglasses, the similarity of their appearances making them look like they are wearing uniforms. Musically, though, Front 242 are much more dance-oriented than Laibach. For all the supposedly scary industrialism of the Front, I reckon their music would go down great if played to people who were off their nuts on disco biscuits, something you would not really get with Laibach in toto. Visually, Front 242 seem a bit more camp than Laibach, though I am maybe just saying this because none of them are as scary as the Laibach guy who wears the tea-towel on his head.

So yes, this was a great gig for bopping around to, with the two Front 242 front guys doing their own amusing dances on stage to keep us all going. Some people, it is true, are not wholly down with the dance aspect of the band, with some punters going in for a bit of auto-pilot moshing. Trust me, though, this is dance music, even if it is a somewhat aggressive variant thereof. And dance we did. Fun was had, with the visuals, music, and onstage look coming very well together.

I bought a CD after the show, but have not had a chance to play it yet. Oh dear, I have just registered that it is not a compilation but a live album. I hope this does not mean that all the tracks will sound like shite and be drowned by crowd noise. Wor bird also got me a Front 242 t-shirt. It is in black, natch, and features an attractive picture of a scary Hind helicopter gunship coming towards the viewer.


*In that Little Englander way, I am implying that Slovenia and Belgium are essentially the same place.

Reason for Twitter's existence found

@cthulhu

hat tip

Film: "Frost / Nixon"

Frost / Nixon is about some interviews David Frost did with Richard Nixon after the latter had left office. It presents the interviews as though this was some kind of key event in American history. I strongly suspect they were nothing of the kind, but this does not stop the film being rather entertaining. The interviews are, in fact, something of a Clash of the Shitans, with both Nixon and Frost portrayed as rather shady characters. Frost, as played by Michael Sheen (who plays all English people from the recent past), seems particularly slimy, to such an extent that Frank Langella's Nixon begins to positively demand our sympathies – when Frost gets aggressive in his questioning, you feel like shouting "Leave that nice old man alone, you English sleazebag!"

This is a surprisingly funny film. The characters are something of a parade of grotesques, with Nixon & Frost themselves standing at the top of a pyramid of roffles. Frost is portrayed as a bit of a buffoon, and there are many chortles to be had from his vain preening and demonstrable lack of intellectual substance. The early interview sessions are particularly chortlesome; Nixon runs rings around Frost, telling drawn-out and inconsequential anecdotes to avoid dealing with more troubling issues. The film also gets much humour from Nixon's barely hidden venality.

That said, this film has its funny moments but is not a comedy. There is a darkness to it, with Nixon being played like a Shakespearean anti-hero, a man with qualities of greatness brought down by his own terrible vices. I think this is what makes him so relatively sympathetic in this film – he seems cut from a different cloth to Frost and the lesser characters, a god-like figure (with god-like faults) in a world of mortals. Frost, meanwhile, is portrayed as a more subtle character than he initially appears. He does come across at first almost like an Alan Partridge analogue, vain and needy. Later on, though, he seems more driven, as he has to hustle for financing and struggle to prevent Nixon dominating the interviews. You start to see him as a man who will do anything to succeed, a man you would not like to cross.

Like Milk, Frost/Nixon is great on period detail and does rather make me think that it would be great to travel back in time to the 1970s. I also find myself wondering whether anyone is thinking of doing a slash film knock-off.

Dead Cthulhu ootab unenäod Rlyeh kodus.

You know that bunch of God Hates Fags nutters in America? They were paying a visit to Chicago, and servants of the world's real ruler turned out to protest against them.

Chinese whispers

Comics Roundup 23/3/2009

Air #7, by G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Perker

This one bills itself as a perfect jumping on point for new readers, and lines up a load of Vertigo (and other) creators to affirm this as one of the best comics they have seen in their puff. For me, though, it has proved a perfect jumping off point, as reading this issue has confirmed my suspicion that this title is nicely drawn but is going nowhere. I reckon this title had promise initially when it was about the weirdness of long haul air travel, but it seems to have rapidly lost any kind of narrative coherence.

Air was the only comic I bought this week. Nightmare. Is there good stuff out there I am missing, or has the supply of quality monthly comics dried up? One thing I am excited by is the sudden appearance of American Flagg collections. This early 80s title was Howard Chaykin's big comic, and I am curious as to whether it is any good or not. Skimming it in the shop reveals a lot of women in their underwear, which is basically what you expect from Mr Chaykin, but the rest of the art also looks rather impressive. I may yet give this a go. I think back in the day it was seen as one of the big serious comics of the early 1980s. Interestingly, unlike Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns (both of which I think it precedes*), American Flagg is not a superhero title. I have read that back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the supers did not have the stranglehold on mainstream comics they have now, with many people thinking that the long-underwear brigade was on the way out. I have started wondering if, perversely, the critiques of the form by Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns actually breathed new life into superhero comics, by making them all edgy and kewl. What do you think?

image source

*or does it?

White One

Hey look, it's me in Berlin, four years ago.