This is brilliant, just absolutely bloody brilliant.

The bloke who was sitting in front of me seems to have shot this footage.

. . . since Delia Derbyshire passed away.

Last Friday I bought Electronic Music in the Classroom, the new album from Jon Brooks, released under the assumed identity of D.D. Denham. It’s a bloody gem of a record.

I’ve heard and liked Jon’s The Advisory Circle stuff but I must admit that the main reason I bought this album was simply down to the fact that it’s been put out under the name D.D. Denham. Even before clicking on the preview samples I knew that I was going to like this, as it was obvious that the composer has been influenced by the same films as myself.

I don’t know why but this record makes me feel like it’s 1984 and I’m six years old and off sick from school, watching British kid’s tv in the mid morning and feeling like I’m getting away with something.

Available via iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp.

Research on Crowley: Wandering The Waste had me scrolling through a copy of Fred Gettings’ Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic and Alchemical Sigils for interesting squiggles which Roy Huteson Stewart might be able to incorporate into the backgrounds and page layouts of the comic. And would you look at what I found on page 201, given as Jerome Cardan’s 1557 sigil for the planet Saturn.

Looks familiar.

Further net-based mooching about led me to this excellent article about the symbol, and Jimmy’s use of it.

Went to the Nick Cave gig in Vicar Street last night.  Fucking superb.

Picked up a signed copy of the new book and even snagged some free sachets of Bunny Munro brand hand cream on the way out!

A brilliant, brilliant gig. So good that it couldn’t even be ruined by the caustic Australian woman who, during the extended Q&A, rather rudely asked Cave whether he thought his new book was misogynistic or not, before being forced to admit that she hadn’t in fact read the book at all, but, not to be outdone, then tried to back up her misogyny accusation by referring disparagingly to the projected backdrop of a fully clothed woman dancing.

Cave was very polite, but eventually told her that he was “fucking offended” by her accusation. She continued to caterwaul from the balcony for a few more seconds before eventually being booed into silence by the crowd.

I was a bit drunk . . . but I’m almost certain this actually happened.

My brother Gerry sent me this great video of Seasick Steve calling out a guy in the audience for being a cunt.

We were at this gig. It was in Tripod, which must be the worst venue in the whole of fucking Dublin (actually, no, it ties with The Academy on Middle Abbey Street – they are both entirely shit, but in subtly different ways).

Tripod is basically a nightclub that sometimes has live music. This means that whenever a good band or act comes to play, you can be sure that at east 30% of the audience are there only because of the nightclub vibe.

It was Seasick Steve for fucks sake and every second person at the gig was dressed in their best clubbing gear – I saw dozens of feather haired pricks wearing fitted black shirts with white collar and cuffs (always the hallmark of a complete cunt) actually standing with their backs to the stage while they talked really loudly about whatever big-titted retard they happened to be polishing their wilted, poisoned cocks to that week.

We saw one ridiculously short twat actually standing on his tip-toes at the bar beside a much taller girl. What did he think, that if stood on his tip-toes for the rest of his life she might never notice.

I’ve no problem with people who want to get dressed up and jump about like a bunch of epileptic fuckwits and wave glowsticks around like a fifteen year old at his first Scooter concert . . . just don’t come to a fucking blues gig to do it.

So, that’s why Tripod is shit.

The Academy is shit because it used to be called HQ and back then it was the best venue in town – just a really fucking great place to watch a gig – great beer, cool crowd of people who really cared about seeing the gig and who knew to shut the fuck up when the band was on. I saw some great acts there: Buddy Guy, Peter Green, John Paul Jones playing old Led Zep tracks on his eight string bass, Robert Plant and The Priory Of Brion, Big Bill Morganfield.

But of course they had to fuck with it and rip out all the seats so they could fit more in and rearrange it and these days it’s just a complete clusterfuck with really bad acoustics.

Gigs these days seem to be full of people who don’t like music.

I was at an Australian Pink Floyd gig in the Olympia a few years back and when we got there we realised that they had sold most of the balcony seats to some corporate event, there were hundreds of middle-aged pricks in dinner jackets all standing around drinking wine from plastic glasses. They all sat down then (we were completely surrounded by them) and spent the next two hours taking the piss out of the music and rolling their eyes and having a chat.

Who are these people? Where do the come from? And why don’t they fuck off with themselves?

All tracks on the first cd are by Hammer legend James Bernard who liked to incorporate the syllables of the movie title into his soundtracks, so the main theme to Dracula went Daaaa . . . Duh . . . Dahhh and the theme to Taste The Blood Of Dracula went Daaa . . . Daaa . . . well, you get the idea. This first cd includes soundtrack excerpts from five Dracula titles, Frankenstein Created Woman, The Devil Rides Out and Kiss Of The Vampire.

Best of the bunch are probably Dracula, Taste The Blood Of Dracula and The Devil Rides Out (renamed The Devil’s Bride in the US because the distributor was worried that people would think it was a western).

The second cd is by Bernard and a variety of others. It has tracks from One Million Years B.C., Hands Of The Ripper and She amongst others. I’d have liked more of the Quatermass II soundtrack, and The Abominable Snowman – only the one minute thirty second main theme is present.

It should be noted that these aren’t the original recordings (some of which are available but becoming hard to track down on cd) but new recordings by The City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. For the most part they do a fine job and these new versions are almost indistinguishable from the originals. The Romance: The Young Lovers theme from Taste The Blood Of Dracula does sound quite different though and is not a patch on the original.

But that one small gripe aside, this is a great and readily available selection of Hammer’s best soundtracks and well worth a listen.

It took a couple of listens to get in to this one (so did the Grinderman album) but it’s growing on me.

However, there’s something about the 6^th track – We Call Upon The Author that makes my skin crawl, I can’t explain it, it really does make me a bit nauseous.

But fuck it, it’s a new Nick Cave album, and even it was just an audio recording of him shitting into a trumpet, it’d still be better than 99% of the dross that gets released.

Equus – Original Soundtrack

Music by Richard Rodney Bennett/Conducted by Angela Morley.

Equus has always been one of my favourite films, and not just because Jenny Agutter gets her kit off in it and literally rolls around in the hay. She did get her kit off a lot, didn’t she, Walkabout – that naked swimming scene, Equus – frisky in the stable, An American Werewolf In London – the saucy shower scene, she even got her knickers off in The Railway Children, well, bloomers, but it still counts.

But I digress, back to the record. I picked this up on ebay about four years ago for a few dollars. This is a really fucking brilliant soundtrack, full of sweeping violins and cellos (which remind me of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, in a fleeting, hard-to-pin-down kind of way).

Along with the main themes of the film it has six Richard Burton monologues in which he says things like . . .

“Afterwards, he says, they always embrace. The animal digs his sweaty brow into his cheek and they stand in the dark for an hour, like some necking couple. And of all nonsensical things, I keep thinking about the horse, not the boy, the horse, and what it might be trying to do.”

and . . .

“Then, with a surgical skill that amazes even me, I fit in the knife and slice elegantly down to the navel, just like a seamstress following a pattern. I part the flaps, sever the inner tubes, yank them out and throw them, hot and steaming, on the floor. The other two then study the patterns, as if they’re reading hieroglyphics. It’s obvious to me that I’m tops as chief priest.”

Burton + monologues = Fuck me that’s fantastic!

Don’t think it’s out on cd, but well worth tracking down on the old vinyl.