The Most Ambient Album In The World...Ever.

The most ambient album in the world has got to be Ambient 1 (Music For Airports) By Brian Eno, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, here's Brian himself, from the album sleeve,
"Over the past three years, I have become interested in the use of music as ambience...I have begun using the term Ambient Music. An ambience is defined as an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint. Ambient music is intended to induce calm and a space to think. Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular, it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."

So there you have it- if Eno himself invented and labelled Ambient Music, then it stands to reason that it's probably him that would produce the most ambient album in the world..ever, init?
My other, and much more convincing argument for this particular album, the 1st in the genre, to be dubbed The Most Ambient Album In The World would have to be based on the following true story.
A couple of weeks back I was tuned into that Pandora site, where it generates customised playlists of music for you, based on your preferences for different bands/music. It was playing my Orb playlist, a good mix of ambient type stuff that's nice background for when you're reading or writing or just wanting to subtly drown out the noise of next door's tele. On this occasion a certain song had been playing now for about 10minutes, chilling me out nicely, so I looked up so see what this particularly interesting/ignorable track was and noticed it was from Ambient 1 (Music For Airports) By Brian Eno AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW FROM AMAZON. Aye, that sounds good that, I thought, I wonder how much Amazon is selling it for? Minutes later my basket was empty once again, and Ambient 1 (Music For Airports) By Brian Eno was winging it's way across the sea from the states. I was looking forward to it's arrival until a couple of days later when I was looking through some CD's for something ignorable/interesting to play and I noticed that there, already in my fucken collection, was Ambient fucken 1 (Music For Fucken Airports) By Brian Fucken Eno!
I mean, how much more fucken ambient an album can you get?
An album I've listened to on a good few occasions already, and I end up buying it again cos I didn't even recognise it?
"Intended to induce calm" is it Brian ?
Not that night-I was fucken livid!
Seven fucken quid that cost me, for a fucken doubler.
Bastard.

Avril Feckin' Lavigne

I'm a bit loath to even post this, but it fucken bugged me and I thought I'd share.... Got home the other night to be met by my 11yr old daughter brandishing a newspaper clipping that announced that Avril Lavigne will be playing Glasgow in May!!!!!!!!!!!!
She mentioned she'd already been on the internet and thought the tickets would be £50.

I near shat.

I had a wee look myself later and found this fucked up nonsense:

"Avril Lavigne - Monday 26th June 2008 Glasgow Academy Platinum Experience Package Meet & Greet Get up close with Avril! “Best Damn Tour” Platinum packages are available now …once they’re gone, they’re gone. • Meet & Greet with Avril Lavigne before the show (pre-show) • Photo opportunities may be possible (subject to schedules) • Floor (standing) ticket to see Avril Lavigne live in concert • Private VIP entry (where available) • Exclusive “Best Damn Tour” gift • Tour programme • Commemorative VIP pass £159.00 inc VAT & ticket (£27.50 + Booking Fee!!!!) Platinum Package Your Platinum Package includes a meet and greet opportunity, during which we anticipate there will be an opportunity to take photographs (there will not be a professional photographer present due to time constraints). Video cameras and recording devices will not be permitted. (so how the fuck does that work then?????) The Platinum Package elements (VIP Pass, tour programme and “Best Damn Tour” gift) will be presented to you on arrival."

I had to mention to my girl that , and I used The Stranglers here as a "for example", pretty much any other band, if you turned up early enough on the day of the gig, you had a good chance of meeting them and getting yer photo taken etc. So to charge £189.00 a pop (and obviously I'd have to get a another ticket for myself too) for some star-struck 11yr olds to stare at Miss Lavigne for 30secs has got to be a fucken rip-off liberty of the highest fucken order!!!!

etc etc e fucken tc

Inspirational Thoughts #2987

"The corrupt and brutal regime of President Ceausescu of Romania was infamous across the world. His ferocious government had run the country emphatically for many years, crushing any signs of dissent ruthlessly. In November 1989 he was re-elected President for another five years as his supporters at Part Conference gave him forty standing ovations.
On December 21st the President, disturbed by a small uprising in the western city of Timisoara in support of a protestant clergyman, was persuaded to address a public rally in Bucharest.
One solitary man in the crowd, Nica Leon, sick to death with Ceausescu and the dreadful circumstances he created for everyone started shouting in favour of the revolutionaries in Timasoara. The crowd around him, obedient to the last, thought that when he shouted out, “Long Live Timisoara!” it was some new political slogan.
They started chanting it too.
It was only when he called, “Down With Ceausescu!” that they realised something wasn’t right. Terrified, they tried to force themselves away from him, dropping the banners they had been carrying. In the crush the wooden batons on which the banners were held began to snap underfoot and women started screaming. The ensuing panic sounded like booing.
The unthinkable was happening.
Ceausescu stood there on his balcony, ludicrously frozen in uncertainty, his mouth opening and shutting. Even the official camera shook with fright. Then the head of security walked swiftly across the balcony towards him and whispered, “They’re getting in”. It was clearly audible on the open microphone and was broadcast over the whole country on live national radio.
This was the start of the revolution.
Within a week Ceausescu was dead."

Making Nick Cave Smile

Did I tell you my Nick Cave story?

It was a good few years back and me and a mate were in Edinburgh to see his gig with the Dirty 3 in the gardens below Edinburgh Castle.
We got there in the afternoon, already more than half cut, and the city was jumping- it was during the Festival and, for once, the sun was out.
As we passed the park where Nick was to play later we suddenly heard a burst of piano and a few, low Antipodean grunts, "One Two, One, Two!"
A quick check over the hedge and sure enough, it was Nick soundchecking; walking this open- air bandstand, surrounded by pensioners enjoying the sun in the park.
We quickly staggered to the front to watch, a few seats along from an obviously awe-struck goth girl, frozen to her seat by Nick's proximity.
We were treated to a few run throughs on the piano then Nick got caught up in a discussion with the stage guy. They were debating whether the seats already laid out in front of the stage were a good idea or not.
Suddenly Nick looked down from the stage and asked me,
"What do you think, should we leave the seats or get rid off them?"
I took a moment or two to mull his dilemma over, then replied,
"I have absolutely no opinion on the matter."
Nick looked, for a split second only, taken aback, then smiled as if he had got the answer he really should have expected.
He chuckled, thanked me for my honesty and carried on with the soundcheck.

Not the most awesome tale ever told, I know, but I can honestly go to my grave knowing that once upon a time I made Nick Cave laugh.

And that, my friend, is good enough for me.

Large Hard-On Collider!

i feel cheated.


So, despite the combined brain efforts of billions of fucktard boffins and the pissing up against a wall of literally thousands of dollar (or was it the other way around? The finer details are already sketchy to me) the mighty Death Metallic Colander sucked and we have failed yet again to destroy man’s oldest nemesis; the Earth.
It was all just a bunch of bullshit wasn't it?
The egg headed ones promised that mibee, ‘round about 8.30am this morning, when the Metallic Machine (in reality just the world’s longest torch) was switched on we would all be cataclysmicaly sucked off into another, better dimension.
And we weren't.
Not even a wee bit.
What a pisser.
It was even predicted by some of the more enlightened boffins, that when the promised black hole was conjured up we’d all have roughly eight to ten minutes before our eyeballs were sucked through our pulsing bodies and out our collective cocks, draining us away down a cosmic space plug hole for ever. I forget the actual physics.
Some even put forward the proposition that, mibee, those last ten minutes would wind strangely back on themselves, like a snake swallowing it’s own tail, and we’d be forced to repeat those final moments over and over and over again. To infinity, and beyond, I believe was the time scale quoted, though I may have dreamed that part.

So, I got to thinking, and came up with 2 questions.

1) In an ideal (end of the) world, how would you like to spend those remaining/ever repeating final last 10 minutes?

And

B) In actual real reality, how did you spend them?

Me? I took a nice, if rather large shit and thunk up all this old bollocks.

And failed, once again, to be sucked off.

Large Hadron Collider #2

...One factor that I find rather distressing, it must be said, is the fairly commonly held belief that “mini” black-holes could be created.
Doesn’t that sound to you like an oxymoron?
“It’s alright, it’s only a mini black-hole”.

“Oh, okay.”

I mean, I’m no scientist, honest, but surely by definition a black-hole is an awesome, indescribably powerful phenomenon, yeah? The fact that they now apparently come in mini sizes does not offer me too much consolation.
It’s not like Mars Bars or ladies skirts.
It’s like a mini cataclysm, or a minor apocalypse- can these things ever be seen as less than fucken enormous?

And how the fuck do you make a black-hole anyway?

Well, I’m guessing, and again I must reiterate so as not to lend too much credence to my musing, for they are only that, I wouldn't want to be seen to be leading anyone down the wrong path here; I’m no fisiks boffin furfukake, but...I’m guessing the answer may be rather simple one.
First, you make a mini black-hole…

Large Hadron Collider

Well, It's a big fucker, measuring 27 kilometers, lying underneath the Franco/Swiss border, and reputed to be the biggest machine on planet Earth. It looks like summit out of a James Bond movie, and it's being used to re-create the "Big Bang" (the reason for building such a colossal and expensive machine being to study the ultimate building blocks of all matter, and in particular to search for the Higgs boson, known as the God particle because of its postulated commanding role in explaining how subatomic particles interact with each other.) Some fear that this particular particle collider could create black holes that could devour the Earth! Oh, and it gets switched on next Wednesday! The collider is contained in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27 kilometres (17 mi) at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres underground. The 3.8 metre diameter, concrete-lined tunnel, constructed between 1983 and 1988, was formerly used to house the LEP, an electron-positron collider. It crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, although most of it is in France. UC Santa Barbara Physics Professor Steve Giddings has co-authored a paper documenting his study of the safety of microscopic black holes that might possibly be produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is being switched on September 10th 2008. The paper, co-authored by Michelangelo Mangano of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), which is building the world's largest particle collider (and remember- never totally trust a scientist funded by the same group their results support), investigates hypothesized behavior of tiny black holes that might be created by high-energy collisions in the CERN particle accelerator. If they appear at all, these black holes would exist for "about a nano-nano-nanosecond," Giddings said, adding that they would have no effect of consequence. However, the paper studies whether there could be any large-scale effects in an extremely hypothetical situation where the black holes don't evaporate. The Giddings/Mangano study concludes that such microscopic black holes would be harmless. In fact, he added, nature is continuously creating LHC-like collisions when much higher-energy cosmic rays collide with the Earth's atmosphere, with the Sun, and with other objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars. If such collisions posed a danger, the consequences for Earth or these astronomical objects would have become evident already, Giddings said. "The future health of our planet and the safety of its people are of paramount concern to us all," Giddings said. "There were already very strong physics arguments that there is no risk from hypothetical micro black holes, and we've provided additional arguments ruling out risk even under very bizarre hypotheses." The LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, will begin operations this September. It will collide proton beams at levels of energy never before produced in a particle accelerator. Those results will then be studied for clues to new forces of nature, and possibly even extra dimensions of space. The first collision of beams is 10th September. The $8 billion project has taken 14 years. Concerns have been raised regarding the safety of the Large Hadron Collider on the grounds that high-energy particle collisions performed in the LHC might produce dangerous phenomena, including micro black holes, strangelets, vacuum bubbles and magnetic monopoles. On 21 March 2008, a complaint requesting an injunction to halt the LHC's startup was filed by a group of seven concerned individuals against CERN and its American collaborators, the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, before the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii. Following the publication of the LSAG report, the US Government called for summary dismissal of the suit against the government defendants. On 26 August 2008, suit was filed against CERN in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg alleging the Large Hadron Collider poses grave risks for the safety of the 20 member states of the European Union and their citizens Two men have filed a federal lawsuit in Hawaii in an attempt to halt the LHC due to their concerns about the safety of black holes. Giddings' study has been cited by CERN as evidence of the safety of the LHC. Some of their fears are based on recent developments in physics which suggest the possibility that an experiment, scheduled to begin at the European research facility at CERN 10/9/08, will destroy the Earth. CERN is installing a new high-energy particle collider, the Large Hadron Collider. It is expected to produce particles scientists have not seen before. Two of these particles could be dangerous:

Black Holes - Several string theorists have published papers predicting that the LHC will produce mini black holes. In the worst case, a mini black hole could swallow Earth.

Strangelets - another potential collider product, might catalyze conversion of normal matter into more strangelets, turning Earth into a small ball of strangelets.

CERN has published a paper asserting several safety factors. Black holes are supposed to dissipate via Hawking radiation. A collection of strangelets is supposed to be electrically positive on its surface, and therefore not attract other matter. However, new studies have put these safety factors in question. New physics papers question the existence of Hawking radiation. A recently published paper finds that a collection of strangelets can be negative on its surface. Other safety factors also seem subject to question.

Oh, and BBC4 Radio will be broadcasting "Big Bang Day" on 10 September to coincide with LHC being switched on.

So, to recap: "On September 10th, CERN - the largest centre of particle physics research in the world, will switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and in the process begin arguably the most ambitious science experiment ever undertaken. This "Big Bang Machine" will recreate conditions just a billionth of a second after the big bang and in the process may answer some of the most profound questions about our universe and how it all began. By smashing particles together at speeds 99.99% the speed of light, scientists hope to answer some of the greatest mysteries in particle physics. What is mass? What is dark matter - the invisible but massive substance that fills the universe? Why is there no antimatter ? Are extra dimensions and parallel universes science fact rather than science fiction? In order to answer these deep questions about the cosmos, the LHC will whiz tiny subatomic particles, known as protons, around a giant ring-shaped tunnel, 27km in circumference that runs 100 metres below the Swiss/French countryside. The particles will then be smashed together 600 million times per second, and the results recorded and observed by four huge detectors that sit in cathedral-sized chambers, deep underground. The experiment will generate 40,000 gigabytes of data each day, which will be analysed by a virtual supercomputer made up of 100,000 processors around the world, linked by the Internet. It's taken 20 years of preparation, 10 billion dollars and has involved more than 10,000 scientists from 70 countries. Many of the technologies it uses hadn't even been invented when scientists started building it. Scientists have called the LHC the greatest scientific endeavour since the Apollo moon landings, and it heralds a new era in our understanding of the universe we live in." http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bigbang/programmes.shtml

An interesting BBC clip showing what might happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SndbB8hA0UQ

So, what's it to be, do you think? The opening of a gateway that will allow our lord satan to enter our world, as foretold by the same people who once believed that the atom bomb would ignite the atmosphere, or that train travel was imposible due to the human body being unable to withstand speeds of 24 mph?
Messin'round playing god?
Or "the greatest scientific endeavour since the (disputed) Apollo moon landings ?

And anyhoo, who doesn't like a good scare, eh?
Still, best not put anything in your diary for 11th September this year.

Just in case.

Tom Waits, Edinburgh 27/7/08

From barely decipherable, drunken ramblings found on a scrap of scribbled paper by my bedside this very ‘morn…

All Glitter, No Doom.

There must be a tax dodge in it somewhere, I mean- hiring a couple of the Waits boys to play in his own backing band? To help finance this year’s family European vacation, one suspects. But, still, what a band.
Although the obvious question must be asked of gifted wind and string man Vincent Henry -could he not strap a couple of rusted cymbals between his knees and mibee kick a big bass drum the odd time as well, the lazy sod? And despite the theatre’s, indeed the whole country’s, anti-cigarette stance, the guitarist, Omar Torrez, was smokin’ throughout. The whole band were. That expression (never used enough, in my humble opinion) “Tighter than Tom Thumb’s arsehole” definitely springs to mind.
Fantastic, inspirational set- yeah, of course at one point I did wish for Burma Shave, but I was getting greedy by that point- greedy, feeling lucky and touched by the songs I got to experience. We could have sat there all night, enthralled, fingers crossed for just one more song.
Wonderful stage dressing/look/feel/vibe blending and blurring naturally into the ornate surroundings of the capital city’s listed theatre, which dates from 1929 and was modelled on the Roxy Cinema in New York.
And it's crowd were good, if mibee a wee bit reticent to join in whole-heartedly on the audience participation moments. I think this was probably just down to being a good bit awe-struck and enchanted by their proximity to Tom Waits, unwilling to forgo even a second of the magic by, god forbid, interacting with it.
Before the show started and as they were being seated, a couple of wags behind me exclaimed on realising their fortuitous seating location, “At least we’ll be able to see the hem of his garment, even if we can’t actually touch it!” We silently agreed that it was more than enough.
Okay, so a few of the tall tales and insect facts divulged by Tom were familiar to me, but they all got big laughs in the right places and, hey, they were still another highlight in a show of highlights for me.
As for the tunes themselves- I was happy. I knew and loved every song, some bringing unnoticed tears and all gave unstoppable grins. The sight of folks in the queue to leave after the gig, with glitter in their hair and on their shoulders sparkling as they made their slow, dazed way out into the night will stay with me, and it’s glimmer seemed to me like the tiny remains of the magic scattered by Tom tonight, slowly fading away like pixie dust.
Or something.
Tom’s hold on the crowd was bewitching, it’s spell never broken- I rose cheering from my seat every damn time he amusingly commanded us to!
Merchandise wise, I couldn’t see me wearing any of the 3 official t-shirt designs, but I liked the idea behind them and at £15.00 a pop they were surprisingly cheaper than I had been expecting. Ok, I might have worn the one that had what looked a bit like a wee stick-man on it, but the little Confession book was a steal- it’s fun, different, but limited to 5000 European tour sales. The nice bootleg t-shirt I got outside was a bargain too at £10.00 for a fairly cool design. I’m off to sleep now, perchance to dream, no doubt, of stomped dust clouds and swinging bare lightbulbs. Of workboots and carny barkers, Romany Greek Cuban-heeled bar mitzvas - the music at which is real gone, trust me, I now know.
Of god and The Devil and The Blues, Invitations and Lies.
Love. Crimson velvet desire, and swamp green obsession.
The World, the dirt in the ground and, above us all, the Moon- in all it’s hues and guises.
Spiders.
Dead Ringers.
Rags.
Stitches.
Rain.
Dogs.
Rain Dogs.
Eggs and Sausage, and the laws against them.
Sweat and Steam.
Mules, I have no doubt, and Diamonds and will o’ the wisps.
And…

And, for once, the Ohrwurm that visit tonight will be welcome, I'm sure.