Hag from the Null Set promotes Quint: Those of you old enough to remember Blast First's devastating compilation "Nothing Short of Total War" (a 1989 release featuring Big Black, Sonic Youth & Head of David to name but a few) will no doubt remember how much UT's "Fire in Philly" made you want to jump through the nearest window, hoping that you were at least four floors up. (at least).

The sound that UT produced was extreme, challenging and made me
resent most of the other music I was listening to at the time. The late
80's, for the most part, seemed to spout nothing but nauseating
predictable brainless stone-washed shite. To me, "Nothing Short of
Total War" was everything. It was all I could see and the last thing I wanted was a history lesson. To this day, I have encountered only a
handful of records that even come close
to it's brain busting brilliance.

Almost a decade later, Sally Young (formerly of UT) is fronting
Quint who have just released their first album "Time Wounds All Heals"
on Egypt Records. This record follows the release of the extremely
successful "Blueprint to a Blackout / Sawtooth" 7" which was awarded
Melody Maker's covetted 'single of the week'. The single, recorded by
Steve Albini, is envigorating, destructive and soothing. Yes, all of these
and more. Quint succeed in fusing brass and strings in a way that  would
make your heart stop while other bands use similar instruments to try to
complement their already
dead ideas/whims. This, combined with Young's haunting lyrics and
razor-sharp guitar and a forceful rhythm section give Quint the most
original and inspiring sound I have heard in a long time. "Time Wounds All Heals" is a bleedin' cracker!

Quint play The Funnel Bar on Thursday the 30th. of July at 8:00 p.m.
with support from The Null Set and Das Madman.

Jega "Spectrum" : I purchased the "Mealtime" compilation around xmas
last or so, expecting it to be somewhat mellow and relaxed, with
tracks by Afx and Plug and the likes. Instead I nearly had my ear
drums blown out of my head by the opening track "DMC" by none other
than Dylan Nathan, aka Jega. This was the first Jega track I had ever heard,
although not long after I did get a taped copy of Skam 009, with
tracks such as "Stainless Steel drum" and "Oak Hanger" being pretty
impressive. He also contributed to the excellent "Skampler" CD compilation,
which I think you can still pick up in Freebird - its a jet black
CD cover with some braille on the front. "Spectrum" as far as I know
is Jega's first full length LP. It's fairly fuckin 'ardcore in places.
"Intron.ix" is dark and threatening with hard and heavy drillish
breakbeats piercing your skull all the way through. The opener, "phalanx",
sounds like a warehouse anthem for '98, with a semi-cheesy melody
and breakbeats, while "Pitbull" threatens to bite your head clean
off with the violent crashes. "DMC" is here in
all its glory, not to be laughed at. "Manic Minor" seems to have
been influenced by some old ZX spectrum game, crazy shit. But the
whole LP doesnt continue in this vain. Theres other tracks which
to my tender ears have a definte jazz influence. "Red Mullet" starts
off like a typical Dave Brubeck Quartet number, with dampened snares and cymbal rides,
while "Gemini", although having a tempo several places above allegro
to say the least, has a simple jazzy bassline, and it reminds me
very much of some of the older Squarepusher material on Spymania.
Then theres other tracks like "Kid Sista" (which is warm and happy,
slow and melodic), or "Ephem", which could have come straight from
Boards of Canada's "Music has the right to children" LP. And then, on top
of all that, you have a track like "Bikini Ski Boat", which as the
Monty Python general bloke would say, is "frightfully silly", in
a Global Goon/Mike and Rich sort of way. Lots of styles of 'electronica'
covered on this LP, you could say a 'spectrum' of styles in fact
(groan). Nice debut release, looking forward to hearing more and also
to seeing Jega live in Dublin some time (hint hint to all you promoters
out there). Enjoyable listening but not for the weak or those with
easily damagable brains or ears.

Wagon Christ "The Power of Love": Plug, Luke Vibert, Wagon Christ
- all the same person. I wonder why it is that all these heads in
the world of music feel that they have to use a million different
aliases. Anyway, despite the title of this four track EP, which sounds
like a seriously dodgy 1980's Huey Lewis and the News number, this is a pretty slick release.
"Rendleshack" is a nice poppy drum'n'bass tune with lots of cude
and cuddly samples and noises liberally cut and pasted in the track.
Its not limp though, the beats are still prominent and its very danceable
rather than beard-stroking, but its still pleasant enough to play in the presence of your
aging mother to assure her you are listening to wholesome music rather
than that drugged up "rave" stuff. "Breakage No. 1" is my favourite
track of the four. INteresting fucked-up arrangement of the beats
and nice wetness in the melodies, I cant really describe it all that
well, suffice to say its worth a good listen. It changes in several places,
growing darker towards the end. "Breakage No. 2" is different from
No. 1, no similarities between the two as far as I can tell.  No.
2 has the funk and its hip hop bounciness brought a grin to my face,
while the final track "Filthy Drummer" ups the tempo again a bit,
still nice and juicy. Its an interesing EP but it does
really lack any brilliant moment IMHO. I like it, but I cant see
it appealing over and over again, and it probably wont be hitting
my stereo's speakers all that regularly in the future.

Autechre live at the Red Box: July 4th saw the coming of the Vapour
tour to Dublin and I was glad to see it. I had heard loads of good
things about the Vapour gigs in the UK, with such shit kickin acts
like Red Snapper, Chantal, Aphex and Squarepusher all doing their
thing for Warp, while other, lesser acts and DJs from crappy big beat labels
also tried to get a look in. This date though, instead of having
several rooms for the punters to choose from, was all contained inside
the four walls of the Red Box, which was a shame, cos it would have
been nice to pick and choose in the Chocolate Bar or the Pod (neither
of which I have ever set foot in, admittedly). However, the presence
of Autechre was enough to make me grin, so I paid my
fairly extortionate 12 quid in and started to get into the grooves.
First on the decks was Orde Mekle from Slam, I think. I am not sure
which one of Slam is which but I think it was him. Anyway, he set
the tone for the evening - pretty hard tech-house beats, with lots
of fuzzy bass in places. It got the crowd going pretty much instantly,
and the atmosphere in the place was quite up for it all night in fact.
I was surprised at the amount of people that had actually come along
for this - was there this many Ae fans in Dublin? Probably not, on
reflection, most people were here just because it was saturday night
and this was the Red Box. After Orde's set, Invisible Armies were
live on stage. They played some of the tracks from the "Neutral Space" EP,
which did sound better coming through the sound system in the Red
Box, but then again it wouldnt be hard considering their music is
pretty boring. They didnt do anything much for me at all, their mix
of big beats and downbeat hip hop really doesnt excite, I cant see
this lot doing very well at all. The crowd seemed to think they were
ok. I was glad to see the end of them, and was
more and more looking forward to hearing the Warpsters on stage.
So the Armies left the stage, and the roadies cleared off the equipment.
Completely. Stuart MacMillan was on the decks next and started where
his Slam partner left off, with more hard house and techno stuff.
I danced away, and time ticked on, with the stage completely empty
and nothing happening to set up Ae's equipment. Eventually alarm
bells started ringing in my head considering the set up they had
before in the Funnel and I started to wander around, looking for
someone who might know what the fuck was going on.
Eventually I was told that Influx had fucked up big time and didnt
bring a sampler to the Red Box that Ae needed to do their live set.
Instead, Ae were now going to be DJ'ing instead, simply just to get
paid for coming over. Naturally I was seriously fucking pissed off.
Ae did DJ for a short while, and it was cool to hear one of their
own tracks "Second Bad Vilbel" from Anvil Vapre coming through the
speakers. But this didnt compensate for the disappointment of not
hearing the live set, especially new material from LP5. After Ae,
Andy Weatherall was on the decks and put things into fifth gear,
playing a hard techno set, which the crowd loved. I, unlike most of the crowd in the Red Box that night, wasnt off my face on E's so I wasnt in the mood to hear more techno again. After paying 12 quid in, I decided I was going to go and get my money back, because after all Autechre were really the only ones I had come along
to see that night. I asked at the door if I could get my money back, and then I was sent to the manager, or a head bouncer, who was about 6'4" and a hundred tons. When he refused to give me my money back, I tried to explain to him that Autechre didnt do their live set as had been advertised on the bill and on the flyers. After realising he was out of
his depth somewhat, he told me to get in touch with a man called Paul Davis (more on him later) who was one of the promoters for Influx. I was going to miss my Nitelink back to Santry at this stage so I went and got my sweatshirt from the cloakroom and said to myself that I would leave it again for another day. I was on my way out the door
when suddenly I noticed a small group of people standing around in a group with voices raised. My ears pricked up as I heard the magic words "money back", so I stuck my head into the group and asked "Are you all looking for a refund too?" to which the answer was a collective yes.
The bloke they were talking to was another bloke from Influx called Shane Egan. I dont know what role he plays in Influx but he is definitely involved, in the promotion end of things I would imagine. Anyway he wouldnt tell us his name, nor would he give us any of our money back.
This of course let to the temperature rising somewhat and the more we argued our case, the more he tried to brush us off with non commital answers. No, he couldnt give us our money back. No, he wasnt the person to talk to. "Then who the fuck is?" asked someone next to me. So Shane Egan went off to get this bloke Paul Davis, who appears to be the man in charge of the whole
Influx operation. At this stage I had missed the Nitelink but I didnt care. Eventually Paul Davis showed his head, and we started off with him where we had left off with Shane Egan. Davis maintained that there was nothing he could do, despite being head of the fucking organisation that was promoting this night out. After much arguing
and shouting and more pissing about, in which time Davis showed himself to be a total wanker IMHO, being completely unreasonable, he took our names and addresses and told us that Autechre would be back soon, and that if we wanted free passes to that gig or any other Influx night we were welcome to them. He also said that he would be in
touch "very soon" with us, of course he hasnt called us yet.
The whole thing about this episode was the fact that Influx werent willing to give us our money back right away. Their argument was that there was other people on the bill - fair enough. But the main people, the headliners didnt do their live set, which was what we had paid in for. Even a refund of eight or nine pounds would have been fair.
But no. Davis wasnt having any of it. Yet there was only six, count them - SIX, people complaining to him about Autechre not showing up. At the Red Box on this night, there was a crowd of approximately 900, if the place holds just over a thousand people. With free passes and concessions and the like, but with most customers paying 12 punts a head,
this means that Influx took in over 8000 pounds on the door. And on the same night, they were also promoting a night in the Mean Fiddler, called Bustin Beats for Independence Day, or some such shite, where 600 people attended, also paying an equally extortionate 12 quid. So overall from door fees on the night of July 4th, Influx took in
appoximately 15,000 pounds, and yet Paul Davis could not see it to refund 50 of this sum to some punters who were short changed.
Even if Influx had put up a sign outside the door or told people in the queue (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we had to stand around for half an hour) that Autechre werent going to be playing live, then that would have been fair enough - we would have been aware of the situation and if we had paid in the full price, then we would have
known what we were getting. But there was no indication of this - probably because Influx knew that if people saw a poster saying "Autechre will not be playing Live tonight", then the punters would have gone elsewhere. And despite Paul Davis' claims that they only knew right up until Ae were meant to go on stage, I was talking earlier on with
the Ultramack boys who had collected Ae from the airport earlier on and they knew well before the gig had started that Influx had fucked up and didnt bring along the sampler that they needed to play their live set with.
Even a promoter like MCD would offer refunds if the main act in a live show didnt play - but a smaller, independent promoter that performs very well around the city, with a regular night in the Kitchen and also the Red Box, with occasional nights in other venues, treats its customers pretty badly.
Also about this bloke Paul Davis, I had rang him at least six times on his mobile phone in the preceeding days coming up to the gig to try and do an interview with either Andy Weatherall or Autechre, I found him to be quite an arsehole on the phone. Each time I was talking to him he didnt seem to give a shit what I was saying,
and every time I called him, he kept on saying "Ohh.. I dunno yet if you can or not. Ring me back in an hour or two." Eventually after getting this same dullard response over and over again, I just gave up. I wouldnt have minded if he had just said "Sorry, they're too busy", that would have been fine. Obviously he has as much respect
for the whole freesheet thing as he does for his paying customers. He had replied to a short interview that we had sent him a good while ago recently, we didnt bother to print it as it, as his answers were just smart arsed, e.g. we asked him something along the lines of "Influx has a lot of regular nights around the city,
can it get any bigger?" to which he replied, "Only if you rub it faster" or words to that effect. Slightly amusing, but then he didnt bother replying with a serious answer. Why should we have given him space in our zine if he was only prepared to be a smart cunt with us?
If you were at this gig and you'd like to complain to him about the whole thing, his mobile phone number is 086 817 8182, or the Influx number is 670 3771. Dont bother leaving a message though if you get an answering machine, I did and they never bothered getting back to me, I had to call them again myself.
 

Super Friday Night at the Funnel, July 10th: Wowser. This was a cool night for music indeed, the Ultramack boys sure know how to promote a night out properly. But first off, was two bands doing their thing. Das Madman were on stage first and this was the second time I'd seen them, but only the first time I'd really paid any attention to them.
And I was glad I did. Das madman are an eight piece on stage, and right from the start they really impressed me. They're slightly hardcore-ish with a softer edge in places, the singer's voice (when audible) is quite melodic and I think it should be used to slightly better effect in their sound. But what really made them click is the
three messers on the stage. Along with your usual bass, guitar, drums and keyboard, you had these three guys playing not your average instruments for a hardcore band. One bloke was tinkling out a xylophone, another lad was playing bongos and shakers and then sometimes helping out on the drum kit, and then finally the third lad was playing all these pipes and
steel dustin lids. They really do sound mental, and the clanging and other unusual sounds make their live set full of noise and energy. They have it all well timed as well, the only negative things that me and the Pinger could see with their sound was that at times it got just that small bit too noisy, and the tune got lost in the noise,
but with a decent sound engineer or producer they could really sound deadly. Hopefully we'll be seeing them again over the summer. Next up on stage were Schroeders Cat, who have shrunk down to a two piece. I had caught them a while back when the played support to Dave Grubbs from Gastr Del Sol, and then they were quite good. But this
evening they really didnt impress me at all. They just overdid the distortion completely, and although I could see the two blokes changing their fingers on the guitars, I couldnt make out any changes at all in the wall of noise they were throwing at us. This just went on and on, and it was only their last track that appealed to me.
That signalled the end of the gig, and then it was just straight into Phunk City. Already the Funnel was busy, but later on it got absolutely rammed to the gills, with the crowd going mental and barely room to breathe, never mind swinging a cat. Alan from Decal was first up on the decks and he was playing a good selection of hard house and techno
tunes, which was surprising to hear from him as usually his sets are drum'n'bass flavoured. It was good though, it just goes to show that you can expect anything when you go to this club. After Alan was the Droid from Power FM, in case you havent heard his show before, its on Saturday nights and he plays the best in electronica
and ambient. He kept up the beats as well, but he threw a few wobblers into his set also, including some track from the DMX Krew, which is sort of an 80's vibe going on; and the Mira Calix track Umchunga Locks from the wap100 single/album. Both fucked up but the crowd loved them, they went down a treat.
Eventually Mike Dred aka the Kosmik Kommando showed his shaven head on the stage. His set was fairly mental. Admittedly I hadnt heard any of his material before, but I knew he was on Rephlex so I expected things to be fairly off-centre. Parts of it were, the beats were bouncing all over the place and people were trying to get their footing,
but a lot of the set was fookin' ardcore acid !!! Loadsa mad squiggly spiralling acid with hard, hard hard beats underneath it all, which of course sent the place ballistic, screaming and shouting, with "ravers" up on the stage (including yours truly at one point) givin' it loads !! Until the manager came along and told us to get down. But still !! I havent seen
that kind of atmosphere at a small club in a long time. Jesus it was brilliant. Afterwards loads of well wishers were up on stage shaking his hand and asking him questions and stuff like that.. I havent seen that since the days of the Ormond.

Palomine, National Prayer Breakfast and Bobby Pulls a Wilson at the Funnel: Palomine are fucking class. Without a doubt one of the sexiest bands around, and not just because all four members are young and good looking, their sound is as tight as a .. hmm, better not say that, but it was very tight indeed. Not one mistake the whole
night, and the whole stop/start thing they have going on was timed to perfection. They were missing their little Moog this evening but it didnt matter, their harder-than-Stereolab tunes were enough to keep a smile on my face. Actually they dont sound particularly like Stereolab without the moog, but the poppy vocals of Caoimhe
and Sorcha are very reminiscent of Latetia Sadier. They were the first band on this evening and deserved to be headlining the gig. Next up was the National Prayer Breakfast, and I didnt like them one bit. They sounded really shit, sort of like a Seattle band gone wrong. There was lots of "humour" as well in their songs, which wasnt particularly funny at all.
The punters seemed to like them, out of nowhere these pissed people appeared and were dancing along to them, some people were even singing all the words. Are this lot that big yet that they have dedicated fans? Hmm.. anyway Bobby Pulls a Wilson were on last and I was too busy chatting to people to listen, the NP Breakfast had killed
off all my interest of what was happening on stage so I'll let Singer do the rest of this review.. over to you now Singer (you'll know its him typing when you see all the bad punctuation..)

Cian gets down to doing his first piece for S@E: Gomez @ the TBMC, Friday July 10th
    Wow. Really great gig... if there's anyone out there who hasn't heard
these guys yet, you should probably consider giving them a listen. Their
music is kindof hard to place, but I guess it would fit into the 'American
Indie' bracket, even though they're from Britain. ;o) It's fuzzy, and warm,
and v. atmospheric, with some great (though odd) vocals and guitar work.
Not to mention the drums and percussion... ah, what can I say, this band
kicks ass. :o) <begin idiotic plug > But don't take my word for it - their
album, 'Bring It On', is in the shops now <end idiotic plug> ;o) .

Various Artists: "We Are Reasonable People": The difficulty with compilations in general is that they can often be a hit and miss affair. I've always found that about a third of tracks are instant bin material - especially with house and jungle packages. But most labels are fairly limited music wise, more so anything with the words
'anthem', 'Ibiza', or 'best ever' in them. Warp Records has a habit of bucking the trends of the day, whatever they may be. How easy it would be to release some big beat CD nowadays with the usual FatBoy/Chemicals fillers and make a shitload of money, but who would remember the music again when the herds moved on elsewhere? Warp's music will always be remembered for just
that. They've always shown themselves to be the most musically innovative label in existence, and in the past 9 years or so they've produced some real gems.
This compilation is a celebration of their 100th single release. (For those of you that would like to read an interview with Steve Beckett, director of Warp, about reaching Wap100, its in issue 30 on the web page.) All the current Warp artists contribute a track, including a collaboration between Aphex and Squarepusher, "Freeman and Willis Acid", which opens the proceedings.
I was expecting a crazy, lunatic bouncy Rephlex-ish number, but instead its fairly dark and restrained to start off with, but eventually builds up into a mesh of dirty drills and tones. Very nicely done, and you can defintely hear the sounds from both parties' music. Undoubtedly the best track is from Chantal, entitled "Umchunga Locks". Considerably
different to the Autechre-ish "Llanga" or the dones of "Pin Skeeling", this track is a heavy, chugging techno number with a crazy fucked up melody sampled from what sounds like either pieces of broken glass pipes or even wind chimes. Again, like her other tracks, its a real challenge to listen to, and the structure of it is hard to grasp. A treat.
Other notable moments include Red Snapper's "4 Dead Monks", a brooding, bass-heavy downbeat jazz outing, with Miles Davis making a guest appearance on trumpet? I think I read that somewhere. Broadcast show they're going to perform well in the future with their moody "Hammer without a master", and although comparisons to Stereolab have
been called unfair, you can still pick up on the 'Labs influence. Plone do pretty well also for their first track for Warp - "Plaything" is slightly silly mixed with a bit of Tortoise avant garde noodlings, cool.
There was a couple of disappointments however, inkeeping with every compilation I have. Autechre's "Stop Look Listen" has a nice bouncy bassline, but the track lacks direction. Gone is the fuzzy growling distortion of Chiastic Slide and Anvil Vapre, the changes are more focused on the top end frequencies. Reportedly their new LP5 is in a similar vein - we'll hopefully
have a review of it in the next issue. Boards of Canada's "Orange Romeda" is a little lifeless, as is Plaid's "Llasas", while Nightmares on Wax's "Fishtail Parker" doesnt strike me as anything better than the glut of brassy trip hop out there.
Its still enjoyable though - the 'avin it techno of Mark Bell of LFO and Andy Weatherall's Two Lone Swordsmen shows that Warp's stuff isnt always for the stereo at home. As comps. go, it shows that Warp are well ahead of, well, everyone really. For any Warp fans that havent heard the likes of Red Snapper or Chantal, its a good intro to the label and
certainly a memorable way to celebrate your 100th release for them. For me though there was something missing. I think the compilation might have done slightly better if there was a common theme to it - like the hard edge of "Mealtime" or the mellow jazzy house of "Nuphonic 01". On the other hand, a common them would never have fitted in with Warp's diversity -
I doubt you could get Autechre and Jimi Tenor to produce something similar. I'm nit picking now. Buy it and make your own mind up. It is defintely worth a purchase.
Thanks to John D. and Killian from Freebird who gave us a promo advance copy of this. In case you've been living in a bubble for the past few years, Freebird Records is situated on Eden Quay beneath the Bus Stop newsagents and stocks all things groovy and beaty. Defintely worth your time.

What do you get when you cross Roni Size and a coffee machine? What do you
get when you cross Roni Size and a small shrew? Well I dunno the answer to
those questions, but when you cross Roni Size with DJ Die and Lennie Laws
then you get Breakbeat Era, a brand new drum and bass combo group thing.
They've got a new single out on XL/Full Cycle and hrm, well it's
different..
 Of course you all know about Represent's New Forms album winning
last year's Mercury Music Prize, but man, dat don't mean shit!! (Sorry, I
thought I was writing for a Hip-Hop freesheet there for a second) Anyway,
Lennie Laws is actually a woman, not a man as you would think from the
first name and not a set of Garda-enforced rules as you would think by the
second name. And she's a jazz-type singer/songwriter. And get this, she
actually sings on this single!! Like, it's drum and bass beats, and her
singing over it like it was a normal song-type thing. Don't get me wrong,
singing a whole song over dance beats can totally work, look at Bjork for
a stunning example of that, but right here it doesn't work at all. In fact
it's the opposite of work, no that would be play. Well it's just crap
then. Boring drum and bass with a ridiculous "happy" double-bass bass
line. (No, I meant to sat bass twice there) Drum and bass shouldn't be
happy!!! It should be dark and evil and sweeping, this stuff is just
bouncy and annoying, and is has some bird singing cheesy vocals on top of
it. Bad bad bad.
 Breakbeat Era have apparently just finished their second single
(nooooooooooo) and are currently in the studio recording an album (oh lord
help us). May the god of drum and bass be cursed for imposing this upon
us.

Demo time!! As the fabled S@E compilation CD idea gets more and more popular literally
dozens of tapes have been sent to our offices (well okay then, Thayl's
gaff). Remember people, if you have written a song with your band,
programmed a track on your spectrum or even filled twelve milk bottles
with different amounts of water and banged them with a spoon, you can send
the recording on tape or CD or computer file (zip it up and split it onto
a few floppy disks if it won't fit on one) to S@E at the usual address (10
Whitethorn Road, Artane, Dublin 5).

First up we have an EP called The Friction of Distance by Without Being
Caught who is actually a bloke called Ewan Hennelly (possibly the coolest
second name in the world? I thought so.). Ewan's put together five
kickin' industrial-ish tracks with simple equipment (4-track, Amiga, drum
machine, keyboard etc) and it's pretty darn impressive!!
 Track one, My Companion starts off with simple taps and clicks,
building up with more and more drums giving a real Autechre sound. There's
also a weird backwards bass synth noise in there which gives the whole
thing a slight 80's feel. Which isn't always a bad thing. The title track
isn't quite as good, it's got some really cool muffled breathing-type
industrial beats with some downbeat (almost depressing) strings but it's a
bit too slow and eh, not really interesting enough. But that's totally
made up for by the third untitled track which is just a huge pounding
crunchy industrial (again) beat-fest which goes on for a while, until just
when you start getting a headache these wavy strings come in for the last
minute or too. Sounds really professional.
 An Unattainable Entity  is quite a relief to the heavy beats of
track three, nice warm sounds with some louder beats near the end picking
the song up a bit. And the last one, Red Bridge 4, wouldn't look out of
place on Seleceted Ambient Works, with it's scary space sounds, low
background hums and general ambient feel.
 So an excellent industrial/ambient five tracks there from The
Friction of Distance, track three being my favourite. I actually got this
tape ages ago but only got around to reviewing it now due to the
infinitely long hours of my job so sorry for the delay there Ewan. *grin*

The next tape we got is from The Ernieboy Calamity and it's errrrr,
interesting. Track one just consists of a bloke playing guitar and saying
how he likes fish and swearing a bit. Me and Stripe instantly broke into
hysterical laughter when we heard this song, I hope that's the kind of
reaction The Ernieboy Calamity were looking for. Their second track was
better though, it was all just guitar/distortion/weird noise reminding us
of the noisier parts of Spiritualized. So, a bit of an "alternative"
offering from The Ernieboy Calamity there. (Alternative in the weird
sense, not in the grunge guitar rock sense)

Just one thing to anybody else sending us tapes and things, please please
take a few minutes to draw a nice picture on the cover, because both The
Ernieboy Calamity and Without Being Caught just sent us blank covers which
are subtle yes, but we'd prefer a bit of artwork or something 'cause we're
picky ungrateful bastards.

Thayl mouths off again: CDs are better than shitty vinyl.

Since the dawn of time man has been divided on this age old subject on
what is better, CDs or vinyl. Ancient vinyl-using cavemen used to batter
their Neanderthal CD-lover cousins daily, before and after lunch. "Unga
bunga vinyl!!!" they would say. "Banga dungo CDs!!" they would reply. In
later years it even got so out of hand that the Romans ordered their whole
empire to use CDs while some splitter claiming he was the son of christ
kept going on about how if everybody bought vinyl there'd be a place for
them in heaven. "Blessed are the record buyers, they shall find peace in
god" he used to say, before he got nailed to a tree.

 Anyway you get the picture, nowadays it isn't so bad, people don't kill
each other over it but you could say there's still a slight animosity
between CD buyers and vinyl heads. The vinos think that they're the shit,
just because records are nice and old and phat and kool and not wack. It's
old-skool man!! Don't fear the wax. Of course the CD-people argue that
CD's are the future man, you've got to contemporize!!! Embrace the
new-age, cast off your black-circle-shackles and enter Tomorrow's World!!

I'm a CD-person. I've been buying CDs since I started listening to any
kind of music at all, way back in 1930. Actually that's a lie. CD's were
only invented in 1982. Which is why they kick ass, because they're
relatively new. So why are CD's so great and records so crap? Well I'll
tell you why.

Reason number one:
CD's are small. They fit into compact disc players that can be taken
anywhere.
Records are big, if you tried to fit them into a compact disk player
they'd break.

Reason number two:
CD can have computer information on them like porn, or computer games, or
encyclopaedias.
Records can have porn too, but it's only the sound of porn, not the
pictures.

Reason number three:
Using a machine called a CD-Recorder you can copy CD's onto other CD's
making totally perfect replicas. Thus your music collection can double in
no time.
Using a machine called a tape recorder you can copy records onto tapes,
which are also crap.

Reason number four:
If you look at the back of a CD you can see yourself.
If you look at the back of a record you can see black vinyl plastic
material.

Reason number five:
CD players can be programmed to skip all the tracks you hate, like that
Mark Bell one on the end of the Warp 100 compilation.
If a song you hate comes onto the record player you have to walk all the
way over and kick the needle.

So there you have it, CD's are bleedin' well better. So why are people
still buying vinyl? Well, the one thing vinyl has going for it is it's
ability to go "wicka-wicka-wik-wik-weargh" when you move it back an
forward on the deck, where if you moved a CD back and forward on your CD
player all you'd hear is "clickedy-click-click-click" which isn't really
in fashion since Morse-code stopped being used. So my message to the
people of the electronic nation is this: abandon the old skool, accept the
CD as the new vinyl. Do it!!!

And here's a report from our mate Colm who's in Los Angeles right
now.
(Lucky fucker)

The Crayola Generations guide to LA

Greetings children. How are things in the city of the small gene pool?
Well anyway it was decided some time ago at S@E that it was necessary
 to look further afield for some interesting topics so, armed with a
ridiculously small budget,
some maps and a crap guide book your intrepid friend here was exiled
from the office and sent to The City That Never Sleeps.

First impressions? Well, it does sleep, in fact it sleeps quite a lot.
From Sunday till Thursday.  During that time period the town is empty.
A pub or club will be lucky to have one or two people in it, but on the
weekend things kinda get out of control and the city begins to live up
to its hype. But it never does. Sure you do see a lot of good looking
people but at the beach and clubs but it isn't exactly Baywatch. Hell
Baywatch isn't even Baywatch. That's set in Santa Monica and they shoot
it down here in Redondo. To make matters worse, don't expect the people
to be friendly. They tell you a lot of crap when you first meet them.
One of their favourite lines is how they always have some-one else's job.
They work in a restaurant but they're really a director/producer/actor.
I keep expecting to bump into Bruce Willis and have him tell me about
the film he's working on until he can get that 'big-break in the
coffee-house scene'.

All in all if you have a conversation with your average run of the mill
Angelino expect the topic of how stressful the free-ways are  to come
up. And with good cause. There is a simple reason for this. Back home,
a  road will always try to get you from A to B. In LA a road gets you from
A to B without having to go through the gettos. As a result, millions
of  WASP preppies can drive around without seeing the abject poverty that
there 'pigmentally challenged' fellow citizens live in, but I hope
there  ready for the next century, when whites become an official minority
in
California for the first time. Se habla Espangol?

Harlequin's top tips.

 Sales tax: Ha! Add 8% onto every listed price you see. The highest in
the US.
 
 Cops: the LA County Sheriff will call you every name under the sun
right up to the point where they put the hand cuffs on. The LAPD will
call you Sir, right up to the point where they shoot you.

Drink some Guinness for me kids