Musical Tuesdays – The Inner Life of the Gay Computer, circa 1987

Well, it’s been a while, what with the Christmas Season and interstate holidays and server problems, but Musical Tuesdays is back!

To make up for the break, I’m presenting not two, not three, but four videos this week! Amazing! And the theme? The Pet Shop Boys.

The Pet Shop Boys formed in London in the early 1980s after a chance meeting in an electronics store. They developed a distinctive style of electropop and went on to become the most successful duo in British music history, selling over 50 million albums. In 1987 they also made a rather strange movie, which was really just an extended series of video clips, including the one I’m featuring for their version of Always on My Mind.

Some background – our heroes have just been warned via the radio of a murderous hitchiker who has already slaughtered three people who gave him lifts. They pull over to pick up a young woman, but end up with a very strange man instead…

With the massive success of the Pet Shop Boys it’s inevitable that they’d attract imitators. For example, the KLF who attempted to follow up the ridiculously massive success of their novelty hit Doctorin’ the Tardis with 1989’s Kylie Said to Jason.

It sank without a trace. Probably just as well.

Imitation of course is the close relative of parody, and we close today with two comparatively recent pastiches, one from New Zealand and one American.

So that’s it. Maybe next week I’ll have enough energy to actually write something interesting…

Oh, and credit to John Allison for the title.

Updates

I haven’t been making any posts this week as I thought it’d be better to wait until I got everything transferred to the new server, but as is usually the case this is taking longer than anticipated. I now hope to get it sorted early to mid next week.

In the meantime, the video card on my home PC has given up the ghost, which means I’ll have to put it into the shop all weekend. No internet access for an entire weekend – especially one with temperatures tipped to get close to 40° – may well drive me mad, so when the Wyrmlog comes back up please don’t be surprised if it resembles Sixth World Problems.

On the subject of numerical world problems, please take a look at how much fun I had this week pretending to be a 14th century peasant who stumbled over an iMac and mistook everyone on Reddit for spirits and demons.

OK, that’s it. See you in the funny pages.

Don’t Panic!

I went to Canberra, had a good time, came back, and in the meantime the Wyrmlog got shut down as a precaution to do with some server security issues. You win some, you lose some I guess.

I’ve turned it back on so I can back it up and then make the switch to a brand new, up-to-date and altogether awesomer Wyrmlog on a more secure server. This means it may be down for a little longer, and it may take a while for the styling to get back up to its current standard. But hey, you come here for the content, right?

So bear with me for the next couple of weeks…

Happy New Annual Cycle!

No musical Tuesday this week, it’s New Year’s Eve for cryin’ out loud!

(And you should have got your fix of music with my last post)

I’m tired out after a week of Christmas festivities and so will most likely be having an early night, but the rest of you bright young things have a fun and safe night!

Roll on 2014!

(If you have a minute or two to spare, visit Wikipedia’s 1914 page to see what happened a century ago.)

Hottest 100 – 2013

It’s that time of the year again when I vainly try and hold on to both any kind of musical relevance and my rapidly vanishing youth by voting in Triple J’s Hottest 100.

I went into assembling my shortlist without any great enthusiasm. Looking back, 2013 seemed like a rather flat year for music – I couldn’t think of any real standout songs. But once I trawled through the lists I discovered a surprising number of sleepers that – while not mind-blowingly awesome – were good, solid tracks. There were enough of these that I had some real trouble winnowing them down to only 10. Nonetheless after much girding of loins and grinding of teeth I produced the following list which has been duly submitted as of this morning…

Tennis Courts – Lorde

There’s an excellent chance that Royals by New Zealand’s own Lorde is going to take the number one spot, which is annoying as I can’t stand it. Tennis Courts though is a great song, and popular enough that may well come in at around the 20-30 mark (shame the video clip is so rubbish).

Young & Beautiful – Lana Del Rey

Does anyone actually like Lana Del Rey anymore? I’m certainly not a fan, apart from this song, and I can’t even explain why I like it so much. It’s certainly nothing to do with it’s association with The Great Gatsby, a movie that I haven’t bothered to see.

Lanterns – Birds of Tokyo

Lanterns is kind of embarrassing because its sounds like something written to capture the “Class of 2013” demographic. You know, like Friends Forever or Good Riddance. Sadly I’m a sucker for that kind of rubbish.

Jessica – Major Lazer

This song is a real sleeper. It didn’t do anything for me the first time I heard it, but then couldn’t get it out of my head. Smoothly insidious.

The Wire – HAIM

Oh Lord, how to pick just one HAIM track? They’re all so good! After much torment I narrowed it down to either The Wire or Don’t Save Me and The Wire got through by a hair’s breadth. Go and listen to HAIM everyone! Now!

Your Body Is A Weapon – The Wombats

The Wombats just keep on delivering – presumably via their backwards facing pouches. Who’d have ever thought that a bunch of cubic-poo producers would make such great music?

Lazer Gun Show – Hey Geronimo

This makes me think of good old Bill Shakespeare and his full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But it’s really good sound and fury!

Pizza Guy – Touch Sensitive

A laid back electronic track that sounds like it escaped from the set of Miami Vice. The TV series that is, not the movie.

Get Lucky – Daft Punk

I really didn’t want to vote for Daft Punk, because everyone will be voting for them. But Get Lucky is fun and catchy, and as such I had no choice.

Gun – Chvrches

Chvrches were another group where I had problems choosing a track. Gun won my vote for no apparent reason – If I’d put my votes together tomorrow I may well have voted for Recover instead. Lots of twinkly electronic sounds to tickle the ears.

So there we are. Artists that just missed out on a place include Bliss N Eso, Horrorshow, Owl Eyes and Tiger Town. Better luck next year guys!

Musical Tuesday – Christmas Eve

It was Christmas Eve babe, in the drunk tank…

Yes, it’s Christmas Eve, and while I am not currently incarcerated in a drunk tank it’s an essential part of my festive season to make sure I dust off my copy of the Pogues’ (featuring Kirsty MacColl) Fairytale of New York (1987) and give it a spin (virtually speaking – clicking on it in iTunes doesn’t have quite the same ring).

Exactly why an Irish ballad about drunks, failed relationships and broken dreams should feel so quintessentially Christmasy has always puzzled me. But there’s no denying that it does. And a lot of people seem to agree. It’s been voted the best Christmas song of all time on numerous occasions, and re-enters the charts every December, over 25 years since it’s release.

Its enduring popularity however is not without controversy – chiefly over it’s use of the word “faggot”. It has been claimed that in Ireland the word traditionally means someone who’s lazy, but this hasn’t stopped numerous attempts at censorship, including by BBC Radio 1 who blanked the word (along with ‘slut’) for several hours in 2007 before public outrage forced them to change their minds.

Our second selection this week is Twisted Sister with We’re Not Gonna Take It (1984). It’s particularly well known for it’s video clip featuring Mark Metcalf more or less reprising his role of Neidermeyer from the movie National Lampoon’s Animal House.

By now you’re no doubt saying “Denys, that’s a great song and all, but what in the name of all that’s sane and holy has it got to do with Christmas?”. Well, let’s try a little experiment shall we? Sing with me mi amigos! We’re not gonna take it! No! We ain’t gonna take it! Did you sing along? Be honest, you didn’t did you? C’mon it’s not going to work unless you do!

Let’s try again. We’re not gonna take it! No! We ain’t gonna take it! Well, I have no way to tell if you did or not, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. So, now sing it again, but with some different lyrics. Come all ye faithful! Joyful and triumphant! See!? See!? It’s exactly the same tune!!

This is not some great revelation. Dee Snider has never made any attempt to conceal the fact that he borrowed the tune. It’s just an interesting little musical factoid that many people have never noticed, despite it being hidden in plain sight.

So that’s it for this festive edition of Musical Tuesday. A merry culturally appropriate festive celebration to all, and to all a good applicable time of day!

Happy Taumas!

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all cross the zone,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a drone,
The fire-ports were locked with their lasguns in place,
In the hopes that an enemy would soon show his face,

The guardsmen were sleeping, tucked up in their billets,
Dreaming of recaff and sizzling grox fillets,
For the rations were low, the supply lines were cut,
The Commander sat up with his rumbling gut,

Unable to sleep he pondered, and tried,
To figure how long they could last unsupplied,
Then on the perimeter sounded a klaxon,
He leapt to his feet, glad of such a distraction,

Across to a gunport he flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutter and lifted the sash,
The night vision auspex he pulled to his eye,
Providing a scan of the objects outside,

His bolt gun unholstered, preparing to shoot,
He beheld a Piranha and eight spikey Kroot,
And a little blue driver with a slit in his brow,
He knew in a moment it must be a Tau,

The Tau and his Kroot flew in over the ice,
And he whistled, and shouted (via translation device),
“Now Gnawer! Now Chewer! Now Nibbler and Biter!
“On Shaper! On Shooter! On Slicer and Fighter!

“To the top of the bunker! To the top of the wall!
“Now lift away! Lift away! Lift away all!”
To the top of the bunker the xenos all flew,
Boxes strapped on to the Tau and his crew,

The Commander spun round, as the ceiling hatch popped,
Through it the Tau and his porters all dropped,
He looked like a daemon, his skin pale and blue,
His oddly cleft face and his cloven feet too,

But a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Showed the Commander he had nothing to dread,
Not speaking a word, they went straight to their task,
Resupplying each backpack and filling each flask,

Then raising salute with a hand sign quite strange,
They headed back out to the place whence they came,
The Tau primed the piranha, the Kroot gathered round,
And away they all flew, barely making a sound,

Yet to the Commander he yelled (via translator),
“Happy Christmas to all, for the Good that is Greater!”

POSTSCRIPT

(The Inquisition turned up at the rise of the sun,
Destroyed all the evidence and purged everyone)

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