Steve Kane - The Almost Entirely Pointless Blog

steve-kane.co.uk is dead... sort of

2010-03-23T22:10:00.003Z

You may have noticed I've taken a sledgehammer to the site. I was going to do the same to this wee blog as well but I've decided to leave it up until I decide whether or not I have any legitimate reason or desire to maintain it...

Stealing time

2010-02-03T20:24:00.000Z

The Guardian today voiced an oft aired opinion that the myriad distractions hurled at us by the media and modern life in general is stealing precious literary reading time. A gazillion TV channels, celebrity culture, 24-hour news coverage, DVDs, social networking websites not to mention the recession, debt crisis and longer working hours "has meant the very theft of our thinking space."

The economic strains under which we are all currently languishing and the subsequent efforts required to survive are obviously going to consume our thoughts and time, especially if you have children to raise and a mortgage to pay off, but suggesting that the many forms of entertainment and social communication vying for our attention are "stealing" our leisure time that might be otherwise spent reading strikes me as absurd.

It's not as if mischievous little demons sporting Steve Jobs masks are sneaking into our homes and planting tripwires so that we end up falling in front of our TVs, computer screens and copies of Heat magazine. Facebook, YouTube and Flickr don't surreptitiously transmit hypnotic waves to keep you mentally shackled to the computer screen. You are not forced at gunpoint to update your Twitter feed every fifteen seconds and read every damn tweet posted by everybody on the planet. You choose how much time you devote to these things. You choose how much of a slave you become to the information superhighway. They all have their own benefits but how much they encroach upon your consciousness is entirely up to you.

If you wish you had the time to sit down with a book then how hard would it really be to switch off your laptop and iPhone for just an hour?

Another headline splattered across the press today was the link between excessive internet use and depression. It's true, there's been a study dontcha' know?

Leeds University canvassed various social networking sites asking questions on how much time people spent online and for what purposes. The participants were also asked to complete the Beck Depression Inventory, a test designed to measure severity of depression. Of the 1,319 respondents, 1.4% - i.e. eighteen people - were classed as internet addicts and showed signs of "moderate to severe" depression. The article's lead author, Dr. Catriona Morrison, concluded thusly:

"Our research indicates that excessive internet use is associated with depression, but what we don't know is which comes first – are depressed people drawn to the internet or does the internet cause depression?

"What is clear is that, for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies."

I'm no psychologist but I would have thought that addiction to anything could be a warning sign for depressive tendencies. Also, measure the depressive tendencies of any group of people - people who eat bananas, people who knit, people who re-enact historical battles, people who collect toenail clippings - and the odds are that a "small subset" of them will show signs of moderate to severe depression. Would it therefore be fair to say that eating an awful lot of bananas or knitting piles and piles of socks could be a warning sign for depressive tendencies? Or does it simply show that 1%-2% of any arbitrary group of people will show depressive tendencies and that such people are prone to addictions of any kind as a means of escape from their problems?

Does this survey actually prove next to nothing?

But that isn't spectacular enough for the press so they plaster sensational headlines about the absolute definite link between internet usage and depression.

You'd better stop reading this post now before you succumb to an irresistible urge to kill yourself.

Catcher caught

2010-01-28T19:13:00.000Z

JD Salinger
1919—2010

Noughty [sic] albums

2009-12-31T18:26:00.000Z

As we near the end of the "Noughties", you can't move for "Albums/Songs that define the decade" lists in the press. (Here are The Guardian's, The Telegraph's and the NME's choices for starters.) I find myself shrugging with indifference at most of the choices I have thus far seen, sometimes scratching my head in baffled incredulity and occasionally, though rarely, shrugging in half-hearted agreement.

But such things are entirely subjective and no list in the mainstream press is likely to earn my adamant and heartfelt agreement. I am nothing if not an awkward bastard.

So, in keeping with the spirit of the times, I shall present my own list. Before i do, I offer up this caveat: I am in no way suggesting that the following are "the best albums of the decade" or "albums you must hear before you die" or "albums that define a generation" or that "if you don't like this music then you are wrong and stupid and probably a kiddy-fiddler". This list is simply a bunch of albums that have fed my never-ending passion for music one way or another and happened to be released during the Noughties.

Supermodified (2000) by Amon Tobin - I could have just as easily chosen Out From Out Where (2002), Chaos Theory (Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack) (2005), Foley Room (2007) or his 2009 collaboration with Joe "Doubleclick" Chapman, Two Fingers, but I choose Supermodified because it was album that got me utterly hooked on Amon Tobin. There is nothing finer than when you discover a musician whose work is exactly what you've been looking for. Tobin's work blends trip hop, drum 'n' bass, jazz, orchestral samples, real world sounds and thumping hard beats to create dark, atmospheric but playful music. His tunes are staggeringly layered and detailed and you can't help but wonder how the fuck he does it. His stuff makes me genuinely glad to be alive and that the human race can't be so bad if there are people capable of making such wondrous noises.

Rounds (2003) by Four Tet - Aka Kieran Hebden, guitarist (among other things), with the post-rock band Fridge, Four Tet's sound has been dubbed as "folktronica" by members of the press who simply must put a label on everything. This basically translates, in Four Tet's case, as electronic music incorporating laid back beats with mandolin samples and, um, squeaky rubber duck noises. Joking aside, Hebden makes wonderfully melodic and sometimes strange music with a hint of whimsy. Tracks like My Angel Rocks Back And Forth, Unspoken and Slow Jam are achingly beautiful and quite unlike anything else out there.

mclusky Do Dallas (2002) by mclusky - A sort of bastard offspring of the Pixies (they worked with Pixies producer Steve Albini), mclusky were a Welsh three piece noise-rock band who made one hell of a raw, no-nonsense racket. Amusing lyrics, too. Any band who come up with the lines, "All of your friends are cunts / your mother is a ball-point pen thief," have got to be worth a listen. Never saw 'em live though: that would have been mental... and possibly fatal.

The Ligeti Project (2008) by György Ligeti - All right, a bit of a cheat seeing as this contains compositions from between the 1950s to the Noughties but this is my list and I decide whether something qualifies or not. So there.

Anyone who has seen Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey has heard Ligeti. His atonal chromatic compositions ain't exactly easy listening but don't dismiss his work as unlistenable avant-garde wank. Admittedly, I struggle with some of his more extreme sonic experiments (the bizarre choral barks and yelps of Aventures and Nouvelle Aventures, for example) but his slow-burning tone clusters create atmospheric textures of sound that are emotionally engaging (rather than scaring the bejesus out of you like Penderecki's early works). This 5-disc box set contains works for large chorus and orchestra and includes those compositions used in 2001 - Lontano, Atmosphères and Requiem - as well as other superb pieces like San Fransisco Polyphony and the awesome Clocks And Clouds. OK, Ligeti's an acquired taste and I don't expect to convert anyone to the cause.

Personal Journals (2002) by Sage Francis - Mention white rappers and most people think of Eminem. Fair enough, he has done some great stuff in his time, but for me, Sage Francis is the man. Not a man to shy away from big subjects, Sage's lyrics combines the universal with the domestic, fluctuating between raging at authority, globalisation and terrorism, and telling personal stories about family, relationships, growing up in urban America and doesn't shy away from examining his own shortcomings as a human being. But there is also plenty of humour and intelligent wordplay that messes around with metaphors, puns ("But extreme fluctuations and temperature changes / have been known to crack pipes... crack pipes...crack pipes...") and absurdism. He is essentially a storyteller spinning yarns from what he sees in the world at large and his own personal history. Musically, his stuff blends familiar hip hop breakbeats with elements of jazz, blues and country and western; it's what Tom Waits might sound like if he went hip hop... sort of.

Tromatic Reflexxions (2007) by Von Südenfed - What happens when you cross the experimental electro/techno sound of Mouse On Mars with the rambling post-punk musings of The Fall's Mark E. Smith? Von Südenfed, that's what. The legendary M.E.S. lends his Manchester drawl to an album of bleeps, squelches, dirty analogue bass sweeps and pounding electronic rhythms. And it is exactly as weird as it sounds... but brilliant too. Fledermaus Can't Get It, The Rhinohead and Flooded are particular highlights, the latter of which is based on a dream one of the Mice had where he turned up to DJ a club night only to find another DJ already there spinning the discs. Smith embellishes this tale by imagining the usurped DJ flooding the entire nightclub in revenge. It's that sort of album. Basically avoid this one if you hate Mouse On Mars or The Fall because you won't get it.

Angles (2008) by dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip - Like Sage Francis (who dan and Scroob cite as an influence), Pip's lyrics tackle, by turns, big themes and personal experiences, sometimes within the same song. He manages to combine humour and pathos seamlessly as in the track Tommy C where he contemplates of the true nature of beauty by conjuring the ghost of comedian and magician Tommy Cooper who collapsed from a heart attack mid-performance in 1984. What could be more beautiful, asks Pip, than dying whilst doing the thing you love that brought joy and laughter to millions? Another example is Letter From God To Man, a supposed letter of apology to mankind explaining His perpetual absence that opens with the line, "A Letter from God to man / long time, no see..." and concludes, "This apology is to Mother Nature / because I created you." Some tracks offer an altogether darker tone such as Magician's Assistant that tackles self-harm and Angles that deals with suicide, violence and revenge. What shines through Scroob's delivery is his compassion and hope that maybe we can all better ourselves if only we stop being distracted by mindless materialism and reality TV and learn a little self-awareness. You know, think for ourselves just a little bit.

Awfully Deep (2005) by Roots Manuva - Again, I could have chosen Run Come Save Me (2001) or Slime & Reason (2007) but Awfully Deep was my first foray into Roots Manuva and still my favourite of his albums. An English rapper who doesn't rap in a cod-American accent, thank fuck. Askewing the the usual hip hop tropes of guns, bitches and bling, Manuva's songs cast their eye over popular culture, the mundane reality of everyday life, family, dope and even religion with great wit, intelligence and sometimes melancholy. His sonic palette combines dirty glitchy beats, dubby bass lines and all manner of squelchy riffs and sweeping pads. Despite his humour and gift for a catchy hook, his music is a perhaps a little too dark and contemplative for the mainstream success he deserves but he is arguably the best exponent of British rap music.

Ah, that will do. There are probably other albums I could mention but I've prattled on about my wilfully eclectic tastes for long enough.

"Anybody want to say anything?"

2009-12-18T19:09:00.002Z

Dan O'Bannon
1946—2009

Don't keep the Wicker Man waiting...

2009-11-16T21:25:00.001Z

Edward Woodward
1930—2009

Jobs 'n' shit

2009-10-01T17:35:00.002+01:00

Long story short: Got a temp job for two days from one recruitment agency. Then another recruiter offered me an ongoing temporary contract but wanted me to start on the day that the first two-day assignment was supposed to start. Phoned first recruiter and said sorry but I've got a better offer. Started the better offer on Thursday. During the day, I was called by a third recruiter offering me an interview on Friday for another ongoing and better paid temp position.

So, come lunch hour on Friday, I went off for the interview. Recruitment consultant gave me wrong address and sent me to the agency's local office. Explained situation to local office who called recruitment consultant's manager who provided another address. Walked to new address a few streets away but was told that the person I was meant to see worked in another building that was, coincidentally, opposite the recruitment agency's office.

Finally made it to correct address and sat my interview; more of an informal chat, really, just so they could check that I wasn't a complete moron. Returned to work. Two hours later the recruitment consultant called, made grovelling apologies about the address fuck-ups and said that I had been offered the ongoing and better paid temporary position. Oh, and, um, could I start on Monday?

Ended second day of ongoing temporary position by telling my boss that I'd had a better offer and wouldn't be back on Monday. He was very understanding but also saddened because he was desperate for someone to do the job and had had several temps before me who had all been complete morons.

Have been working ongoing and better paid temporary position for about four weeks now. It's pretty fucking shambolic. It took them two and a half weeks to sort out my computer system access so that I could actually start doing the job I was hired to do. Everything worked for a week but then I lost access for apparently no reason. And then it fixed itself this morning. Pretty frustrating but, then again, better than the alternative of unemployment, starvation and destitution.

Oh, and it is another banking job. How the hell did I end up working in banking?

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

2009-08-24T14:41:00.006+01:00

Heath Ledger was halfway through filming Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus when he died. Gilliam, a great friend of Heath's, initially wanted to shut the film down. However, the cast and crew rallied round and persuaded Terry to finish the film to honour Heath's memory and enthusiasm for the project.

So, Terry figured out a way to allow him to finish the film whilst retaining all of Heath's performance. Half the film is set in contemporary London and the other half in a fantasy world of the imagination. Heath's character, Tony, makes three journey's into the fantasy world so, having shot all his scenes in the "real" world, Terry wrote it into the script that people's appearance changes when they venture into the fantasy world. This allowed Terry to cast three other actors to play Tony for the fantasy sequences, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, who all deferred their salaries to Ledger's family.

Anyway, check out the trailer.

C'mon, how cool is that? The film looks to be a return to the early Gilliam style of Time Bandits and The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen.

I love Gilliam's films, his wild imagination, his defiance of convention, mindless bureaucracy and the corruption and oppression of authority figures. Sure, his films are often a bit of a narrative mess but, in amongst all the amazing imagery, there is always a great compassion and humanity that celebrates individuality and free thinking.

Reports from this summer's major film festivals say Doctor Parnassus is Gilliam's best film for years, if not his best film, period. And it's Heath Ledger's final performance - that must surely count for something.

It would be wonderful for the film to find a big audience and prove to all those unimaginative naysayers in Hollywood that there is a market for crazy, radical films like this.

The film opens in the UK on 16 October with other countries to follow. Go on, take a chance. You never know, you might like it.

Further information:

Dreams: The Terry Gilliam Fanzine - News, interviews and set reports for Doctor Parnassus
The Doctor Parnassus Support Site - A worldwide campaign to raise awareness of the film

I have a blog?

2009-08-15T20:55:00.003+01:00

Oh yeah, right, the blog...

S'pose I should write something here. It's been a while. When did I last post...? June.

Right, so, at the end of May I was told I was losing my job in two to four weeks. But then I didn't. The company kept me on for another week, then another, then another. It was the end of July before they finally let me go. And since then I've been sat at home looking for another job. In the middle of a recession. With unemployment figures at their highest level in fifteen years. Yeah, working as a temp for a bank during one of the biggest economical nosedives in history was never going to be the most secure of career paths.

You can appreciate, then, why I have been a little preoccupied and neglecting my blogging duties?

What else? Been on a couple of dates. Waste of time as usual. I have managed to cobble together something resembling a new tune in the days since I lost my job. It's kinda' gloomy and not finished yet. It is resting in that limbo state of almost-done-and-needs-a-little-something-else-but-I-don't-know-what. A rough version is up on SoundCloud which you can listen to by using this embedded player thingie:

Song For No One by Steve Kane

Blah blah, what else... I'm on Twitter. My pal Suw Charman persuaded me to sign up over a year ago before it became famous in the mainstream press when it was populated mainly by tech-heads and nu-media journos. It is now, of course, a handy way to stalk celebrities. I didn't know what use it would be to me for a long time but I am gradually using it more often. I'll put a feed up in the sidebar so you can revel in my 140-character pearls of wisdom.

I've more or less given up on writing fiction. I haven't written anything for three and a half years now, virtually nothing since I puked out that novel for NaNoWriMo in 2005. I dug that out a little while ago - I couldn't get past the first page for the awful, awful prose. I can no longer in all consciousness refer to myself as a "writer" anymore. The desire and the ideas have dried up, vanished. There was a time when I'd always be mulling over ideas, newspaper articles or snatches of overheard conversations at work or in the street would set me off on some bizarre train of thought. Not so now: I sometimes sit down with every intention of firing up my mental fiction engine and get back into it. I think and think and think and... nothing. No stories to tell.

I don't know why this is. Perhaps I am so out of the habit of writing fiction that my brain has forgotten how to do it - "use it or lose it". Maybe I see so much shite literature getting accepted for publication while good writers, innovative writers, writers pushing the boundaries and daring to be different, are routinely rejected and I think, "What's the point?" Who needs my words? What have I got to offer? Who gives a fuck what I have to say about anything?

All I know is that the need to write has gone. I even thought about deleting this blog, this entire website, even. The only reason I don't is because of some vague notion that I might one day feel the need to write again and that I might rekindle my ambition to get my stuff into print.

I am still interested in music, though, which is something. I was listening to all the stuff I produced for Mad Hatters' Review the other week and, damn, some of it is really fucking weird. I don't even remember writing some of it. It seems that my ability to experiemnt creatively hasn't completely abandoned me.

I also seem incapable of hitting the apostophe key when I type and always press the semi-colon button instead. Every time. I have no idea what this has to do with anything but I thought I would share.

I am going to try and blog more regularly from no on. Honest.

Happy Bloomsday!

2009-06-16T11:11:00.000+01:00

Damn, the whole thing almost passed me by. I was down at the beach, see, cracking one off behind a sand dune while spying on this really cute chick. OK, so she had a gammy leg but I'd have still done her.

He knew Kung Fu

2009-06-04T17:54:00.002+01:00

David Carradine
1936—2009

Let off some steam

2009-05-04T09:42:00.002+01:00

Valves, originally uploaded by Guffmonkey.

The interweb defines me

2009-04-26T23:24:00.002+01:00

I am perfectly sane. It's true: a Facebook quiz told me so.

Uh

2009-04-23T21:27:00.003+01:00

Two albums by The Fall I ordered arrived in the post today. The "bonus disc" on one of them didn't contain the bonus tracks at all but was a duplicate of the main album; the other one had a bloody great scratch on it.

The fried eggs I cooked for dinner didn't turn out very well either.

Bollocks.

One of them days, I guess.

Christ, what a crap blog this is.

Off To Kingdom Come

2009-04-19T20:31:00.006+01:00

J.G. Ballard
1930—2009

Random conversation #2

2009-04-17T18:56:00.002+01:00

When at work, instead of swearing when something goes wrong, I say something like "fiddle-sticks" or "flibberty-jibberts".

"Why do you say those silly things?" a colleague once asked.

"Because otherwise I'd say 'fucknuts' or 'cunting ball-sacks'."

She looked horrified.

"You see my point," I said.

Photographic tomfoolery

2009-04-12T18:06:00.004+01:00

I always wanted to be on TV...

Random conversation #1*

2009-03-23T21:59:00.004Z

Female work colleague: "So, Steve, what team do you support?"
Me: "I don't support anyone."
Female colleague: "No one?"
Me: "I don't follow football."
Female colleague: [Uncomprehending face] "What... not at all?"
Me: "No."
[Momentary baffled silence]
Older female colleague: "Well, if you did follow football, what team would you support?"
Me: "Er...?"

* Don't read too much into the "#1" - this may be a series that goes nowhere.

34 years old. Me, that is, not the blog

2009-03-22T11:28:00.001Z

Yes, this morning I am flopping about my apartment after an evening of theatre and booze to celebrate another birthday. The play, incidentally, was an amusing show called Edward Gant's Amazing Feats Of Lonliness...

In 1881, one of the Victorian theatres most enigmatic impresarios, Mr Edward Gant, presented his famed travelling show for the very last time. In 2009, Anthony Neilson and Headlong Theatre are proud to present a reconstruction of this historic and extraordinary evening of mystery and magic, spectacle and strangeness. Behold . . . The Amazing Feats Of Loneliness!

Anthony Neilson is one of Britain's most acclaimed playwrights, creating pioneering, taboo-breaking new work in a bold and compassionate way. Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness is a beautiful and very funny exploration of performance and performers, of sadness, mortality and wonder.

Contains strong language and scenes of a wonderfully freakish nature.

And jolly good fun it was too, a sort of mix of Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, The Mighty Boosh and The League Of Gentlemen. I mean, any play that contains the line, "A woman so ugly I would not have shat in her mouth if she were hungry," has got to be good for a giggle.

Tuesday night - St. Patrick's Day, as it happens - I went to see a band called Stinking Lizaveta. I was meant to meet some acquaintances at an Irish bar but, oddly enough, the place was rammed with St. Paddy revellers and I couldn't find my chums so I went to the gig instead.

Turned out to be a most curious night. The venue was a small bar called Bloc. It's a tiny place that has no stage area; the three bands performing that night were all crammed into a corner with barely any room to move.

I was sitting at the bar nursing a pint of Guinness (what else?) when a tall, skinny woman approached me and asked if I was there to see the band. I said yes. She then asked if I was on Last.fm and was I the guy who's been listening to Tom Waits this weeks. Mad, isn't it, how you can be recognised by your online social networking profiles? I can't decide if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand I got to meet and chat with a really cool girl at a gig who might have never spoken to me if she hadn't recognised me (although maybe she would have - she was happily going around chatting to anybody who happened to be in front of her. I wish I had that kind of confidence); on the other hand, it could end up like this...

(Before you ask, the tall, skinny, cool, pretty girl was quick to mention she had a partner so nothing like that was on the cards. No, I ended up leaving the gig with someone entirely different but... no... not going to tell you about that. It wasn't good.)

And work has been sucking the big one too. My "productivity" came under an unusual amount of scrutiny so basically I've been working my nuts off so as to ensure I don't get sacked. But fuck it, I won't bore you with that: it's my fault for working for an evil cunty bank. Suffice to say I've been putting in lots of overtime for some extra cash and going slightly crazy with stress over what's happening.

Interesting month. Been getting into lots of Tom Waits, something I've been meaning to do for years, and rediscovering Yello and Art Of Noise, the two bands who really got me into electronic music when I was a kid.

Let's finish on a song, shall we?

This is what I've been doing this morning

2009-03-01T13:08:00.002Z

Stuff what has happened recently and shit

2009-02-28T19:07:00.001Z

Went to see a band called Rampant Rabbit the other week who are a "doom-laden funkadelic" DIY noise rock band. Or, at least, they were a "doom-laden funkadelic" DIY noise rock band, for the band have now disbanded. Never mind. They were a three piece, two bassists and a drummer, who sounded like a cross between Melvins and Primus - noisy, shouty and fucking loud (the volume no doubt exacerbated by the confined space in which the gig took place). 'Twas an entertaining racket.

One of the other acts on the bill was a lanky, fop-haired, indie looking kid who thrashed out chords on his guitar to a backing tape of basic drum machine rhythms whilst screaming into a microphone. Ten out of ten for enthusiasm but he was little more than a mad busker. Hmm, "punk busking": an emerging genre, perhaps. Look out for it. Still, he was an amiable young lad.

What else, what else... oh yes, I went to see Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, his début as director as well as writer. Phillip Seymour-Hoffman plays a theatre director suffering ill-health and a failing marriage. When his wife eventually leaves him he decides to mount an ambitious theatre project: he builds a replica of the city in a massive warehouse and populates it with actors to play people from the real world and to semi-improvise the brutal truth of his painful life. Reality and fiction bleed into each other in a typically "meta" Kaufmanesque fashion.

It's all a bit of a mess albeit a humane and thought provoking mess. The film is not as tightly structured as Kaufman's collaborations with directors Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind). This is due in equal measure, I think, to the nature of the script and Kaufman's direction - it all feels a little unfocussed and flabby.

That's not to say it's a bad film, by any means. It is by turns intelligent, emotional, inventive and blackly funny with many strong performances. Having said that, I can't imagine that I will return to it as I have done to the aforementioned Kaufman penned films. I can't help but wonder if Charlie's scripts aren't better served by the fresh eyes of other directors. On the other hand, this is his first outing behind the lens and perhaps time and experience will see his directorial prowess grow.

Chomsky with dick jokes

2009-02-26T20:04:00.004Z

Because today is the fifteenth anniversary of his death...

Which is scarier: vampires or avant garde classical music?

2009-02-15T12:42:00.000Z

I've indulged in a bit of hardcore culture this week. On Thursday evening I attended a performance of seven movements from Stockhausen's Aus den Sieben Tagen, a collection of fifteen "text pieces" written in 1968. Instead of a tradition score of musical notation the players are given a series of textual instructions. For example:

Think NOTHING
wait until it is absolutely still within you
when you have attained this
begin to play

as soon as you start to think, stop
and try to reattain the state of NON-THINKING
then continue playing

This sounds like an horribly pretentious idea that would result in a mess of unlistenable noise but it produced a fascinating, engaging and curiously humane piece of improvisational music. The percussionist was particularly fun to watch as he bowed a giant cymbal, rattled beads, beat out rhythms on an empty plastic water cooler bottle and scraped a whisk around a hub cap. It was impossible to know how much of the performance was rehearsed and how much the musicians improvised on the night but it was a truly enjoyable performance.

On Friday night I went to the GFT to see F.W. Murnau's 1921 film Nosferatu complete with musical accompaniment by Scottish guitarist David Allison who, through clever use of a delay pedal, built up a live layered score as the movie played.

I thought the film was wonderful - those iconic images of Max Schreck rising up out of his coffin and his talon-fingered shadow creeping up the stairs... brilliant. In a way, I wish I could have seen it in an empty screening room: it was a bit difficult to fully immerse yourself in the film when there are chuckles coming from the audience. This is understandable because aspects of a 90-odd year old film are inevitably going to appear silly and outdated to 21st Century cinema-goers. A couple of the friends I went with commented that, although they thought it was great, it wasn't scary. Well no, if you judge an old, old horror film by contemporary aesthetic standards you are unlikely to conclude that it is frightening. The trick is to imagine what 1920s audiences were used to; to them it would have been astonishing. You have to regress, rediscover a certain innocence, lose yourself to the grainy photography, the jerky motion, the theatricality of it. Besides, as with the best horror yarns, the fear is in the subtext. The homicidal yet erotic suggestiveness as the shadow of Schreck's extended fingers creep over Greta Schröder's sleeping body? C'mon, that's frickin' creepy by anyone's standards!

I stayed in on Valentine's Day, as usual, and watched Tod Browning's Freaks which I picked up for a couple of quid on DVD. I also got a classic 1960 French horror flick called Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without A Face) and Get Carter for a fiver each. That's the rest of my Sunday sorted.

Yeah, not really happening

2009-02-04T19:39:00.001Z

OK, so "album in a month" may have to be re-designated to "EP in a month" or, more likely, "one frickin' song in a month".

Fourteen tracks ain't gonna' happen at my current work rate which stands at one four-bar riff in four days.

Therefore my revised objective for the month of February is to simply write a new track, maybe two if I get on a roll. All things considered, I want to produce some quality rather than quantity.

I suspect that all these produce-something-in-a-month challenges simply aren't the kind of motivation I need, and that successfully completing National Novel Writing Month in 2005 was a fluke. Any substantial piece of work produced in such a short space of time is not going to be of the best quality and I don't feel inclined in expending so much energy on something that will basically need to be completely redone from scratch in order to make it any good.

No, I want to concentrate on producing one or two good pieces of music this month rather than fourteen tracks of shite.

Stalled

2009-02-01T18:54:00.000Z

Okay, February 1st! Let's go! Let's write an album! Let's do this thing!

Let's wonder why music software is running so slow! Let's frown at constant audio drop-out! Let's curse as sequencer crashes after opening just one plug-in!

Let's think what the frickin' problem is! Let's remember that hard drive is full of video files and it would be a rather good idea to dump them all to external drive! Let's also notice that hard drive is in desperate need of defragmenting! Let's do general computer maintenance gubbins that we probably should have done before attempting to run CPU hungry music-making applications!

Let's go make a stew while computer gets cleaned up, drink a beer and try again later!

Yeah, haven't exactly hit the ground running. Hey ho.