Wall of Mouths

Maybe this will give them back their brains, so to speak.

I never really noticed much difference between the quality of Babyteeh and Pleasure Death. It all sounds messy but it fits the music.
I’d buy them anyway, but I hope the band get some input into this and don’t let them do a Rammstein remaster (‘Turn it up until it hurts!’) because that’d be a real shame.

I’d be interested to see T? do what the Pumpkins are doing at the moment with their reissues. I’m sure they’ve at least got some interesting live recordings they can put out.

For me I just liked it immediately, whereas CT is a grower and - as much as I like it - has never really caught in my mind.

Is Marlow the ‘brief crack of light’ on the album?
I think it’s very much needed otherwise it’d be pretty bloody unrelenting. I’m pretty excited to hear some of these songs live.

Got mine today from Amazon.

I might be weird, but I liked the whole album all the way through, right from the first listen.

The second half of the album kind of blends into one song (but one with ‘movements’) until Stark Raving Sane. I like that.

It’s definitely got the doominess and paranoia of Nurse and the like, but also a clear progression from Crooked Timber. Easier to get into than CT, in a way, but it’s like they took everything that went into that (and anything cool that they heard since) and smushed it into slightly more accessible songs in that weird way that they do.

It’s a circle peg in a square hole. It doesn’t fit, but they made it.

Not music, but I saw Andrew O’Neill at the Live Theatre on Sunday. Very funny man, nice bar, good ice cream, great night.

I like Celebrity Masterchef because everybody’s always so crap. BBC celebrity editions are just wonderful because most of them work for the BBC anyway.

Masterchef in general is great fun when I feel like shouting at everybody on the telly.

As a friend once said, “It’s not about the cooking, it’s all about the simmering sexual tension between John Torode and Gregg Wallace.”

Listened to Beyond Magnetic a few times today. Still very happy with it for the four quid I spent. Rebel of Babylon in particular is a very strong track.

Tonight it’s been…

Freedom - Neil Young
Best of The Doors (2 CD version)

I’m cooking, so I need stuff I can sing along to really badly (read: drunkenly) before anybody else is home.

That’s the one. Funny how things work out.

It was a case of everybody else figuring it out before we did, because we’re stupid.

Prestige, I think. Probably not the best but still the best I’ve ever owned.

I heard you can get some at Waitrose. There are some great butchers around here too so I might look out, although my girlfriend might never forgive me for cooking bunny.
The original recipe called for pork fillets cooked slowly. Bloody lovely.

Tried making it tonight for pasta, flatmate put his fresh coffee in the fridge, my cream (and the sauce) tasted like coffee. Unimpressed.

Bought a lovely new casserole pan, an addition to the ever-expanding list of stuff my flatmate isn’t allowed to use (including my Sabatier knives).

Becoming a cook (I kind of loathe to call myself a chef when doing pub grub) changed my attitude at home a bit. For the first few months I really hated having to come home and cook, but lately I’ve really enjoyed it and I’ve been experimenting a lot and trying to get the most out of flavours (being so poorly paid). Working in a kitchen has done wonders for my sense of timing, if nothing else.

I’ll dig up some of my favourite French recipes and post them on here soon. There’s a lovely creamy sauce with white wine and mustard which has been really valuable to me, taught me a lot of transferable skills (especially cooking with wine properly) which I use every day now.

My first 2012 release arrived today. Metallica’s Beyond Magnetic.

For a bunch of leftovers, it’s really very good. It’ll keep me busy for a week until ABCOL arrives anyway.

This week…

Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever
Miles Davis - Blue Moods
Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Best of + live disc)

Work is irritating. Rant is necessary.

I’m an apprentice chef (£2.60 an hour, almost able to pay my rent) and this is my only experience of a professional kitchen. I’ve been doing this since mid-September last year. My professional cookery/ health & safety/etc. course has seen delay upon delay, so I don’t have any training.

On my third week I replaced one of the two chefs outright, giving me days on my own until eventually I was on my own every day I was working. I am now training up another apprentice.

During my time working with her, I built up quite a close friendship with my head chef, Lilly, and I’ve always felt like I could trust her.
However, she is now feeling like her job is being threatened and has been saying bad stuff about me behind my back to my boss and everybody who will listen, although all she has been able to say is “the kitchen’s messy” and “he’s a bit slow”.

I had some drinks tonight with Tom, the bar manager, who I definitely know to be trustworthy and he warned me about the way she was acting. I’m ultimately just very disappointed that a 55 year old has resorted to this tactic.

I know that I’m very good at my job, all considered. The restaurant was so busy on Saturday night that I ran out of food to serve people, but my boss has been shite at acknowledging this, with only Tom actually doing so.
I cooked for 60 people on Saturday night, I did it alone and I kept my cool throughout despite it all. I also did it for sixteen quid.
Andrew, the other apprentice, was in for most of the night and he was a big help - sorting plates, chips, buns, washing up - but he’s got less than a week of experience and so the actual work went to me.
Not to put Andrew down at all, but he’s got no experience so that’s just how it is.

I feel very let down by the way Lilly has been acting, especially considering that I covered for her recently when she had to go back to Holland because her brother was in a car accident. I worked nine days straight for shit money and this is all she can say, this is all she can do.

I don’t think she realises that she’s fucking with my job, with something that barely pays my rent anyway (I’m also in a contract with two other people and they would be kicked out on the street with me) and quite how well I’m actually doing considering that I’ve effectively had to bumble my way to where I am now.

I could go on forever - and I already have - but the important thing is that I feel a bit better now.

Watched Hercules in New York last night.
My favourite part is possibly hearing all the traffic on Mount Olympus.

Funny that they never explained why the brothers in Kickboxer looked absolutely nothing like each other…

Just ordered Hercules in New York, can’t wait.

I saw Die Hard with a Vengeance for the first time in about ten years the other night, it kind of almost fits into this category - it’s a shit Die Hard film but actually a pretty good action film, even if it makes no sense. I did spend most of it laughing however.

Not super fond of the video itself (nor Crooked Timber’s) but the song is fuckin’ great. I get the feeling that this new album is going to blow CT right out of the water.

Oops. Make that Kim Jong-un rather than Kim Il-Sung, seeing as he’s been dead for ages.

1) Wesley Snipes
2) Paris Hilton
3) Joan Rivers
4) David Hasselhoff
5) Kim Il-Sung
6) Lindsey Lohan
7) Zsa Zsa Gabor
8) Aretha Franklin
9) Vladimir Putin
10) Dmitry Medvedev
11) Jean-Claude Van Damme
12) Chuck Berry
13) Dick van Dyke
14) Prince Philip (Joker)
15) Phil Spector
16) Paul McCartney
17) Yoko Ono
18) Ringo Starr
19) Jake LaMotta
20) Larry King

Mine was mostly lost in a haze of blueberry gin.

Good times.

Actual playlist order, Boom Boom Pow into Band Aid II.
Yes, really. Band Aid II.

On another note… Nurse was the last T? album that I didn’t own. Finally got it a week ago and it’s hardly left my stereo, it’s pretty fuckin’ great.

Mostly the Christmas shite that they’ve been playing at work. My boss is currently in mid-life crisis mode, so the playlist switches between the likes of Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas and then on to Saviour’s Day by Cliff Richard.

It is agony.

Just having a listen to some of the stuff from Hard Rock Hell. Living in the Shadow of a Terrible Thing gets better every time I hear it.

Kind of putting off listening to Before You… as I’ve not heard it before, but I will anyway.

Smashing Pumpkins on Monday.
Possibly one of the best things I’ve ever been to. Billy was in a great mood all the way through and wasn’t even murdering his voice like he was for a while.
Also, they played for over two hours. Which they should be, really, for forty quid.

It was worth it.

As much as I dislike U2 as people, I can’t deny that Achtung Baby is a pretty decent album with some very good songs.

I’m currently listening to my neighbour playing guitar slightly too loud. He’s not that bad but I wouldn’t have minded a little bit more sleep.

Smashing Pumpkins on Monday and Lloyd Cole on Thursday. The joys of employment!

Also, T? in April. I’m hoping for a proper tour announcement sometime soon too.

I’ll be getting mine for Newcastle tomorrow.
I’m not too fond of Skindred, but they might be better live and if not then I get to see T? for five quid, so it’s all good.

I’ve got it in flac on my computer. I’m going to upload it somewhere slightly more permanent but I’ll not post the link in here just because I’m sure this is something we all want to keep in the family, so to speak.

PM me if you’re interested.

Got my tickets for the Pumpkins yesterday. £5 service fee on top of the £35 ticket. Ticketweb (or O2) are fucking motherfuckers.

That was just fuckin’ beautiful. I’ve never heard a live version of that song before and it’s better than I could have expected.

Thanks, Christian!