Rendy Woby

“You, you, still seem to have, in that film, an obsession...

Tue, 01 May 2012 23:58:00 +0100

“You, you, still seem to have, in that film, an obsession with mutilating the human form. I mean, is that what’s necessary these days to bring thousands of people into the cinemas, to watch that kind of movie?”

Sam Raimi is too, too cute in this.

When you pay 75p an hour, nobody expects service

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:23:00 +0100

When you pay 75p an hour, nobody expects service :

The above, from yesterday’s Guardian is, yes, some top level horseshit. But the most glaringly, screamingly wrong bit is when they get to explaining how staff on P&O ~~ferries~~ cruise ships are paid according to how customers rate their attitude.

“Cabin stewards whose attitude was ranked below 92% by customers will forfeit an entire bonus payment worth approximately 15% of their basic salary.”

If customers EVEN KNEW the staff on their oil-stinky, holiday ferry were being paid SEVENTY FIVE PENCE AN HOUR, they wouldn’t give a shit about their attitude.

And for the homophobes out there he is Englerlish

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:17:50 +0100

Digital Soundboy have done a Fabriclive mix which comes out in...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:33:00 +0100

Digital Soundboy have done a Fabriclive mix which comes out in May. A version of the above is the last of 49 tracks which appear to have been specifically curated in order to make indie kids like me question their entire existence and/or want to stamp on every weedy album they own.

The whole endeavour is ‘quite something’ so I shall be wearing my DSB I’m Deep Pan, You’re Thin Crust t-shirt today even though this will convince precisely nobody I am cool.

[EDIT: THIS ALBUM IS AMAZING]

Two things. One, this page of This American Life podcasts, all...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:50:00 +0100

Two things. One, this page of This American Life podcasts, all of which have Shalom Auslander on them. I am pleased, it will keep me going after I have finished Hope: A Tragedy and feel the gaping hole of a loved book, finished.

Two. This week I had my woman-mind broken and put back together again by some music. When you return home to jiffy bags stuffed with CD promos and breathless press releases every day it is easy to become jaded. But I would be lying if I did not say that occasionally - just occasionally - a song comes along which snags at the firmament of your very being. POWERFUL songs.

Anyway, my students played it to me - they had created it in class when someone needed a piece of music so they could practice some engineering technique or other. One of them was reading New Scientist, so they wrote a song with found text lyrics from an article. If you are sure and think you are ready, you can play it above. It is called Sexual Newt.

I was reunited with some very old cassettes today and found...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:55:00 +0100

I was reunited with some very old cassettes today and found this. I can’t remember who said it but it does sound like something Noel Gallagher would say, and I am pleased to find my (home-taped) copy of Screamadelica & Dixie Narco inside.

Around the time I started making my own cassette inlays, Give Out But Don’t Give Up came out. I was very disappointed. I hated it so much, I stood outside Manchester Academy the night they played with my best friend, shouting WHY DON’T YOU JUST BUY EXILE ON MAIN STREET / PRIMAL SCREAM ARE FUCKING SHIT / THEY’RE JUST FUCKING SHIT. Which wasn’t very nice, but then, I don’t think I was, and they were.

If you are a spoilt woman of the modern world such as like...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:41:58 +0100

If you are a spoilt woman of the modern world such as like myself you will sometimes forget that it is not normal for websites like Discogs to exist so that you can find out absolutely anything you want to know such as when things you love were released and on what label and then buy those things for a reasonable amount of money from another person who does not love them anymore. But when this arrived this morning I got all YES SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.

Ane Brun has covered Arcade Fire for Rolling Stone. It is free...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:54:04 +0100

Ane Brun has covered Arcade Fire for Rolling Stone. It is free and it is classy.

I will use the above instructional videothing to learn That...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:29:00 +0100

I will use the above instructional videothing to learn That Don’t Impress Me Much in Spanish if it fucking kills me. ALTOGETHER NOW: Pero eso no me mantendra tibia en la larga, fria y solitaria noche

[Someone included a Twain-ism in an email today. I wish more people did This Sort Of Thing in the name of musical promotion.]

What do you think, does this person a) no long have the need of...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:21:53 +0100

What do you think, does this person a) no long have the need of self help, or have they b) decided that self help is a crock?

OH MAN SO POIGNANT

If I am working on something massive and sprawling I tend to...

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:21:23 +0100

If I am working on something massive and sprawling I tend to gravitate towards albums I know inside out, so it’s less easy to get distracted - the logic being, that you can’t write yourself when your brain keeps snagging on the words of others.

Anyway, I had completely forgotten about Brian Eno and David Byrne’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Which is stupid, because it is brilliant.

Death now follows the man like a cloud

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:20:04 +0100

North Atlantic Oscillation have a new album out on Kscope at...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:10:00 +0100

North Atlantic Oscillation have a new album out on Kscope at the end of this month and this is the lead single, Soft Coda. I have a feeling writing about it will bring out all the dread in my person, not least because I intend to use the word ‘beatific’ to describe it. Really all you need to know is that it is ‘good’.

Because I am eternally disappointed that my life does not share...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:55:00 +0100

Because I am eternally disappointed that my life does not share the script, production values or neat pay-off of a Hollywood film; and because, like a great big Leo Bloom, I do want everything I’ve ever seen in the movies (and mean to have it); I will make sure I am always ready. ALWAYS IN READINESS for the moment it is even the tiniest bit appropriate to say; ’That’s all you got lady, two wrong feet in fucking ugly shoes’.

And maybe I will get to use it if the officious witches at the gym continue to tell me off for being late. Although I will say, petty officialdom makes for an especially punishing work-out, as it made me absolutely livid yesterday and then I went mentile on the rower. Thanks, witches!

I realise musicians have better things to do than PR their own...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:29:00 +0100

I realise musicians have better things to do than PR their own music but there are odd occasions when people are good at it and the email announcing their new thing does not fill you with a strange mixture of dread, guilt and apprehension. Obviously this mainly happens when you love the musician in question and they happen to have artwork as pleasing as the ridiculously talented dÉbruit, above (whose debut album is out on Civil Music in June - on GOLD VINYL).

But in a world where PR often translates as splat-mailing inboxes and using abominational phrases like ‘impact date’ because ‘release date’ (despite sufficing for over fifty years, being in common parlance and making perfect sense) must now be superceded by new-fangled / entirely pointless horseshit jargon just so that the person sending the email can feel like they are part of tEH IntErNeT AgE / more interesting than any embarrassing OAPs who still use ‘release date’; and in a world where pretty much every announcement of every new piece of art inevitably (and I think, tragically) ends up in a dull, grey Inbox or on a list headed More Shit I Have To Look At Or Listen To (rather than inspiring a feeling of trepidation, because the shit in question could, potentially, break your brain and transport you from your sorry life for just two seconds, such is the blinding power of ART); you do start to wonder if there were not a better way.

I say this as someone who knows a great many PR people I admire tremendously - they work hard, care about the bands they represent and find the machine just as annoying as those on the tickertape, business end of it. But like nearly all forms of industry which have gone from being vital, visceral and interesting to (as my sister says) Places Where People Open Their Electronic Post All Day, I am keeping my eyes peeled for anyone able to find a way to subvert or dispense entirely with email. Mainly it’s just that occasionally, it seems bizarre that we’ve all adopted the same way of working; swallowing the business model whole, long before we’ve worked out whether it tastes nice, or will do us any good. Or more importantly, whether it even does justice to, or honours, the art itself.

[EDIT: THIS DEBRUIT RERUB OF BOUNCY’S END OF TIME IS AMAZING]

On Friday I gave myself a pat on the back for having an...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:43:00 +0100

On Friday I gave myself a pat on the back for having an excellent job that basically means I can attach myself to people I admire and get them to tell me how to do stuff. By all of which I mean, I went to interview Sarah Pettegree of Brays Cottage PORK PIE COMPANY because THEIR PIES INSPIRE EPIPHANY. Also, I wanted to learn how to make pastry.

In the end we made All Day Breakfast Pork Pies which have Cumberland sausage, quail’s egg, smoked bacon (*NB any other kind of bacon is pointless) and baked beans. I consider myself some sort of saint after I deigned to give away TWO of the THREE PIES I took home to my family. Swearing is of course very wrong but I am not going to lie, the pies I made under Sarah’s fine tutelage were fucking lovely.

You will be able to read about what makes a perfect pie, the cutesification of country life and some thoroughly inspiring (and very sensible) advice from Sarah about how to grow a food business wisely and carefully in the next issue of Norwich magazine. I mean, I haven’t actually written it yet, but that has more to do with my pathological avoidance of writing than it does any enthusiasm on my part vis. PIES.

Bray’s Cottage’s website is here and you can get their pies in lots of places throughout the UK - although if we are being local about it I recommend a visit to Amaretto (they do pizza with chilli con carne on it, a GAME CHANGER in my book) or Union Yard in Norwich (new but apparently marvellous, at least according to Sarah, and I suspect we can trust her recommendations).

This is what I shall be attempting to purchase on Record Store...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:02:36 +0100

This is what I shall be attempting to purchase on Record Store Day.

Disappointing Publications, #657

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:25:00 +0100

(It’s about real ale).

This week’s singles column is here - it was a lovely,...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:34:12 +0000

This week’s singles column is here - it was a lovely, assortment week where I got to hop from funk to house to spoken word like so many lily pads.

There was also a new T. Williams thing, which is always cause for celebration in the part of my brain that likes to pretend I have still got it.

If you want to ask a professional person (or, in fact, anyone) to donate their time or skills for free, here are some tips.

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:43:00 +0000

Acknowledge That Fart Smell

Hey, what’s that stink? Did you have eggs for breakfast? Or is it you, forgetting to mention that you’re not going to pay me?

If you don’t have budget, just say, calmly, that you don’t have budget. Lose the Dickensian orphan act, just say it. Say it, I don’t know, ‘straightaway’. Then your freelancer/human can make a value judgement.

Don’t force the freelancer/human to ask if there is money involved, or – worse - act like they just farted when they do. They are not asking because they just found a really nice Learjet in Rich Tosser’s Monthly. They’re asking because it’s weird not to - and sometimes, because they have to.

ALSO:

Nebulous Ideas About ‘Support’

It is exciting when you are passionate about a thing, especially when you realise that your 5-D sound installation/art ‘event’ is going to be so amazing it will break the world’s brain. John Wilson and Mark Lawson are going to be so hard for you!

BUT

You are not involved in the removal of landmine splinters from the feet of Angolan children. You are doing an art project / you are in a band / you are putting on an event that is part of your personal vision. You’re asking someone to help you further your career. So invoking the language of actual charities, is kind of gross.

Other Things You Can Do

A cool/brilliantly sneaky/grown-up way to get around the ‘support’ notion, is to support the person you want stuff from, before you ask them for stuff. Can you help promote their vision (on the e-internet, perhaps), before you start asking them to help with yours?

If you want someone to donate their time and skills for free, the very least you can do is be SHITFUCKINGWHITEHOT at admin. So. Let your human know as early as possible where you want them to go, and how long you want them to be there. Get them some lunch, refund their travel expenses promptly, and say thank you.