You wait for months for anything newsworthy to happen with your beepy electro band and then two crop at once. Honestly. It's like busses. The relevant posts:

• "Cassette Electric are shameless self-promoting bastards." - which got it's title because I know that Oli has a Google Alert set up for his band name. Hi Oli! :-) But the gist is that if you buy their new song, they get to play the Big Chill and the profits raise money for the London To Brighton bike ride I did on Sunday.


• "A Looptron remix in the wild!" - in which a remix I'm not even entirely sure I had time to do was very nearly sort of finished at 11pm last night has already escaped at the hands of The Sleep.

I guess that's the closest thing to a release I've done in AGES. Must work in that...

Well, it was the London to Brighton bike ride yesterday and, somewhat surprisingly for some of us, we actually made it to Brighton. It was huge fun and at last count we'd raised more than two and a half grand for the British Heart Foundation. Thanks very much to everyone who chipped in - you're all awesome.

If you haven't donated but would like to you can do so here.

Now I'm off to find some industrial strength painkillers to alleviate the throbbing in what's left of my knees.

Just a quickie - decided that charging for the MP3s for Obsolete Before You Start was a bit weird which is probably why almost no-one bought 'em that way (funny how the universe works - actually sold more downloads on iTunes!) so you can now download the whole thing for FREE. When the London to Brighton ride (sponsor us!) is over I'll get right on finishing the new stuff.

Meanwhile - just clickety here for the beepy goodness!

Tell your friends! Nowt like eine kleine electromuzik to make your Friday afternoon slide by smoothly...

Back in January we had something of a tragedy at the place where I work. A guy on our team, Shri, suffered a massive heart attack, keeled over in the office and died. He was just forty years old and left behind a wife pregnant with twins (who are now born and healthy).

Now, Shri knew he wasn't living the healthiest of lifestyles, had already suffered some health problems and as a result he'd already resolved to get fit and sort himself out. He gave up the the booze and the fags and the fatty food. Somewhat ironically, to set himself a goal he'd signed up for for the British Heart Foundation's annual bike ride from London to Brighton.

So as a way of honouring our fallen comrade and doing some Good Work in his name a whole bunch of us from the office have signed up to do the ride in his stead. Since February I've bought (and practically ruined) a bike and have been spending large chunks of my weekends training for this. Not because I'm unfit though. Oh no. Well, maybe a bit. But mainly because in order to make it a bit more competitive we've been betting heavily against each other with all proceeds going to the BHF and this could get really expensive. :-)

We're also having a fundraiser night in the work bar on June 5th with proceeds from the booze going to the charity, live music (perhaps including the first Looptron outing in a while) and other exciting stuff ahead of the ride itself (which is on Sunday June 21st). The only goal we have is to raise as much cash as possible.

You can get more information on the British Heart Foundation's work here. If you'd like to donate / sponsor us you can do so here: http://www.justgiving.com/in_memory_of_shri

Thank you. Nx

Oh noes! I went and got the old Slide Pheromone logo tattooed on me back on Friday night! And I'd only had a couple of beers too! Me mum's gonna fookin' kill me.... ;-)

Actually, I've been thinking about getting this done for years... I've been knocking round in bands with Des, Oli and Tris (and at the time Ed, Lisa and Milly) since I started uni (which was the 1993/4 academic year) and it seems that sixteen years later we're still finding excuses to hang out and occasionally attempt music, be it in Moeker (which evolved from a later variant of Slide Pheromone that had Martin and Sarah) or various folks being recruited by Oli as Cassette Electrik's backing band, or Sarah guesting on Looptron stuff. As well as that, the little dominos style icon was originally done for SP:TNG several years back by a Timmay! at a point where he, me and Sarah were all working for a slightly rubbish web agency where we made some very good friends, drank rather excessively and enjoyed the dotcom crash together. :-)

So, it's a reminder of good times with fantastic people over the last 16-odd years of my life. And like most reminders I leave for myself I've cunningly put it somewhere I can never actually see it.

Which, I suppose, doesn't exactly excuse my going out and randomly getting a tattoo on a Friday evening, but at least it's not completely meaningless, eh? Plus it opens the way for that half-sleeve Japanese woodcut style samurai tattoo I always wanted...

Went to see the new Star Trek movie.

Verdict: Wow.

[some possible light spoilerage - consider yourself warned.]

The cast is spot on (particularly Chris Pine, who somehow manages to de-Shatnercheeserise Kirk without de-Kirking him), the look of the film is fantastic (Apple-store-meets-industrial, daaahling) and the story is basically a very cunning way of jettisoning everything that went before (while still remaining "canon") so they can do a prequel and place the characters in real jeopardy. You know, rather than the "well Obi and Anakin can't die cos they're both in A New Hope" scenario. They boldly choose to leave it borked too, resulting in a universe that contains the same characters but with utterly different motivations. This may upset some of the hardcore fans, but frankly... who cares? I loved that they deliberately flirt with or subvert a lot of Star Trek cliches in small ways. ("Hi Christopher!") And it's actually funny too, and not in the unintentional way the old ones were. There's lots of nods to old Star Trek for Trekkies, and references to other JJ Abrams shows (even Slusho!) but it never gets clogged up with them. Hell, even the plot holes are bigger and better and shinier than before, but it's so damned watchable that you really just don't care.

Bad stuff? Aforementioned plot-holes. Well, not holes as such, just everything is just a bit too damned... convenient. Other stuff, the score is a bit Elfman-era Batman (although the actual sound design is pure classic Trek in places). There's some utterly horrific product placement in the early parts (offset by good use of the Beastie Boys). And they use a distressingly Fringe-level of lens flare in every third shot which gets a bit tiresome/blinding/ohmygodmyeyestheybleedtheydiepleasemakeitstop.

Doesn't matter though. I still came out grinning from ear-to-ear. It's better than The Wrath Of Kahn. Which makes it the best Star Trek movie. Go and see. Go and see now.

Speaking of Fringe, very happy that this week's episode (another JJ show) has a guy who's convinced he's the son of Sarek (i.e. Spock) who wants to save the universe from time-travelling Romulans and/or Khan. And Walter's drinking a Slusho. And Leonard Nimoy (old Spock, for the uninitiated) is playing a recurring character.

Now that's what I call cross-platform marketing, pop kids.

Went out with some of my very favouritest people in the universe last night and over a meal and few bottles of wine a plan was discussed.

I don't think I've been this excited about a plan for a while.

So a crack team of F.A. "forensic accountants" didn't fall for the whole "it was the holding company, honest" blag while investigating Southampton Football Club's money troubles and have invoked the 10 point penalty required when a club goes bust.

This is... unfortunate.

Just to be particularly vindictive they're waiting to see what happens to apply the penalty. If Saints avoid relegation this season the penalty will be applied which will relegate them. Alternatively, if they are relegated this season the penalty will be applied next season, meaning Saints start on -10 points. In League One. With no money. And no shirt sponsor. And lots of debt.

Anyone else get the feeling this could be the last we see of the Saints? I mean really the best we can hope for is that someone buys the club (which is now effectively a League One club so probably cheaper) and that we avoid finishing in the relegation zone so that they apply the penalty this season and we start next season on zero like everyone else.

That's the best case scenario.

I wonder how long it'll be before a lynch mob in red and white turns up at Rupert Lowe's house...? In the meantime...we get to enjoy the whole relegation experience again. Not. A. Happy. Bunny. Glad the Pompey supporter who sits next to me isn't here at the moment.

PS: Happy St. George's Day. I think.

This is officially my second favourite iPhone application EVAR (after Fieldrunners). If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, enjoy synthesisers / beepy noises and are partial to singing robots this could very well be the best 119 pence you've ever spent.

Bebot [iTunes link]

Long time, no post. Mainly cos I have been in sunny West Africa. In the Gambia, to be precise. And while I was basically intending to deploy there because it's sunny and there was a beach, me and Blount did get a bit sidetracked into seeing some of the country...

It was a bit of an eye opener - while you're participating in it's burgeoning tourist industry there are signs everywhere that you are in fact in one of the poorest countries in the world (it's in the bottom 50 according to the UN). Literally you could walk a few hundred meters from the beautifully landscaped, all mod cons hotel and find people living in corrugated tin huts and children playing barefoot in the gutters. It seems that the money being dragged in by the commercial tourist operations is barely benefitting the wider community - all they see of it is stuff passed directly by tourists who venture out and remember to tip.

They're an utterly fantastic people though. Everyone had a smile, and a friendly word and something they could offer you (often in return for your filthy tourist dollars, if possible). We got talking to a couple of the local guides who had access to a 4x4 (which was painted green the same as the tourist taxis so as not to get stopped by the rozzers with us pasty folks in the back) and got them to take us round - saw some touristy stuff (wildlife reserve, Paradise Beach) but also some stuff that's off the tourist trail - local markets, some insights into the fishing trade and agriculture that provides the main thrust of the local economy on the coast. It made drinking beer by the pool at hotel prices (bearing in mind a beer there cost a reasonable chunk of the average weekly wage) a bit of a guilt-tinged pleasure.

Still, it was a brilliant experience. And I'm no longer a blue-white colour. Up to a sort of beige now.

For those who are interested the are a collection of photos up on Flickr. Some of them are a bit lo-res (taken with the iPhone) but some of them I'm quite chuffed with.

Sat down last night to do some actual musical type recording (because the number of random demos kicking around is getting stupid and a few of 'em have a coherent thread that might be worth, you know, finishing... maybe even a new Looptron record) so I fired up the trusty old MacBook pro. Then, a million years, an Ableton upgrade, a couple of NI upgrades, a few months worth of Mac OS X security updates and no recording later it was time to go to bed.

On the bright side, my upgrade frenzy did take me back to the Expert Sleepers site (who seem to specialise in cheap but awesome plugins - my favourite kind!) to get the latest Augustus Loop tape delay thingy (which is basically what runs the Looptron live rig) and pick up their newly released Oomingmak plugin. It's a strange beast - it takes an audio input (say, fersinstance, a guitar), figures out the pitch and supplements/replaces it with varying types of analogue-esque synthesis. With filters and envelopes and everything. Lots and lots of fun, and it tracks insanely well. Very nearly managed to get the "I Want To Break Free" guitar solo noise out of it :-) And you can make such lovely digital noises with it if you starve it of input. Ooooo, and had lots of fun singing through it too... you can get some nice early Goldfrapp-esque type effects if you blend it in behind the vocals. (Although, obviously about two octaves lower and with dodgy pitch in my case.) For twenty quid it's well worth a punt, I reckon.

However, playing with said new toy kept me up waaaay past my bedtime. Expert sleepers, my arse.

Days without incident: 35. No, 36. Plus I've just realised Lent is actually more like 46 days because they don't count f**cking Sundays. I could cry.

As a penniless musician myself (a lifestyle I support by being a rich and famous rock'n'roll computer programmer) this is IMHO the best quote ever regarding the music sales model in the New Interweb Order:

"This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop."

Thank you, Jonathan Coulton. (Clickety on the link for the full post - definitely worth a read.)

Days without incident: 31

Okay, so I didn't call it quite right about the final Battlestar Galactica episode but it was still really bloody good. Messrs Moore and Eick, we salute you on your fine televisual production. Now don't frak it up with The Plan movie and make the complete BSG blu-ray set available as soon as possible, would you? Thanks.

[If you haven't seen it stop reading now. Seriously. There are spoilers ahead.]

...

[I mean it.]

...

[Sure?]

...

[Okay then. On your head be it.]

They certainly made some interesting choices (and risky ones given it's ostensibly a sci-fi show). Most geek audiences wouldn't like the fact that certain things were left unexplained - the more I think about it the more I love that Starbuck just vanished without explanation having finally helped her nearest and dearest (just like Sam Beckett does in the final episode of Quantum Leap) and there was a strong acknowledgement of a literal higher power - a force of nature God/Plan/whatever with the Six/Baltar apparitions as actual "angels" (much like the bartender at the end of Quantum Leap... oh hang on).

Still, Quantum Leap similarities aside I love that they really played their final endgame to the "life here... began out there" spiel from the original series, with the population of the fleet mingling with our own prehistoric civilisation. (Hey, just like the Golgafrinchans in The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy!) There was some beautiful imagery too - Adama sitting on the hillside next to Roslin's grave. And the shot of them crashing Galactica and the fleet into the sun, just like the Disaster Area stunt ship in the Hitchhikers Guide...

...woah, all this really has happened before, hasn't it?

Days without incident: 28

So. Here's what I reckon is gonna happen...

[Note: Spoilers if you're not already up to Daybreak Pt. 1]

Galactica and the fleet have travelled thousands of light years at velocities faster than light, right? Now, according to Einstein, from their point of view the Caprica they can now objectively "see" through their telescopes would actually be the one from thousands of years in their past (because time does not travel faster than light). The algae planet with the 3,000 year old temple (where Xena, Warrior Princess sees the Final Five) is objectively nearer, and Earth from which the final Cylons came from 2,000 years ago is nearer in time still.

Inevitably, Galactica's final mission beats the baddie Cyclons, probably taking the ship, Adama and Roslin at the very least with it, and some Boomer-based redemption is likely. It turns that Hera/Bob Dylan are the key to some sort of Insta-travel McGuffin plot device (maybe she turns out to be the one true God?) that allows them to travel instantly between places without experiencing relativistic effect. This enables the surviving fleet and Cylons to go back home and become their own great-to-the-power-whatever grandparents; some of them settle the 12 colonies (guessing the humans split off and do this), others build the temple on the algae planet (Baltar's acolytes?) and the colony on Earth (probly the good Cylons.) These divisions of the group aren't perfect, so there's some mixing and thus some humans in these new colonies pick up Cylon DNA etc allowing certain future humans to experience the Cylon "projections" (e.g. Baltar/Roslin).

Still haven't quite figured out Starbuck's angle yet - thinking that she may have to crash and burn on Earth at some point in her own future so she can discover her own body in her own subjective past later on and set the fleet on the path to Earth.

Regardless - foreknowledge of these events forms the moral and spiritual basis of all three civilisations as prophecy, genetic memory, the Book of Pithia, the Cylon's "plan", whatever, and is all geared towards starting the process again so that they continue to exist...each society has started in a different period of "real" time depending on how far they are from the 12 colonies, and each is looping in time forever. Thus:

"All this has happened before, and will happen again."

UPDATE: Grant thinks the black hole the Cylon colony is orbiting might have something to do with it. Naked singularity and a plot based on shafting space-time? Sounds promising.

(Of course, knowing my luck what'll actually happen is that Boxy will reappear with a robot dog and Face from the A-Team will save the day.)

Days without incident: 25.

PS: If I called this right you all owe me a beer.

Three bright, sunny days in a row? Best stop now, universe, else we'll get used to it. Wiv zees ultraviolet rays you are reeellee spoiling us. Etc. It's almost like spring out there, but that's not due to start for a few days yet. Desperately trying not to get my hopes up. Must. Avoid. Crushing. Disappointment. Of. English. Summer.

Meanwhile, indoors.... my verdict on the new iPhone OS 3.0 features: Meh. No death ray.

Days without incident: 23 (Practically hallucinating pizza now.)

Days without incident: 21 (which must be more than halfway, surely.)

EVEN THE GODDAM COMMIES HAVE PIZZA WHEN I CAN'T. AAAARGGGH.

While I'm here, here's the five second review of Watchmen: It adds absolutely nothing to experience of reading the graphic novel, but it takes nothing away either. I guess it's not like The Dark Knight though, where the Nolans combined all sorts of bits of Batman history and backstory, along with some amazing cinematography to make something new that was the best film it could be. This is almost too faithful to the source material so it doesn't get to take advantage of the extra facility that moving pictures should be able to give it. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely need to give it another go, I reckon.

Score: 3.5/5 radiative blue penises.

Days without incident: 17 (despite people taunting me)

As I'm sure all of you are aware this Friday is Comic Relief's Red Nose Day money raising thingy. Well, the little brother (scum that he is) has been recruited the local press DAHN SOUFF to write a song for the occasion. And then they got lots of bands, also from DAHN SOUFF to recorderize it on to some sort of magnetic medium, possibly cheese with iron filings in it cos they're a bit backwards on the coast. (It's sort of like Band Aid for the mentally incompetent.)

Well, I've heard it. You know what? It's blummin' marvellous. And funny. And probably mildly offensive. And it smells slightly of cheese.

Anyway, the whole point is to raise money for all the good things that Comic Relief do and the tune in question will be on sale tomorrow, with all proceeds to the cause. I wholly expect you to purchase it. I shall be buying 5. Perhaps 6. Plus, if you find yourself DAHN SOUFF there's also a gig on tomorrow featuring the culprits and their many and varied accomplices. All details for this stuff can be found in the following places:

Grant's updates are here: clickety

You can join The Funny Money Belly Band Myspace here: clickety

You can join the facebook group here: clickety

Do it. Do it now.

Days without incident: 5

Thanks are due to my little brother for his support at this difficult time... support rendered in the form of picture messages and this IM conversation:

Grant says:
 did you get my texts?

BlackOps says:
 yes
 thanks
 
Grant says:
 sorry - we're filming some comedy sketches at the heads and it was the meal of choice

BlackOps says:
 just. mean.

Grant says:
 if you didn't blog about it - i wouldn't know

It's been 4 days without incident and they (the dealers and pushers) are already missing my custom enough to be emailing me about new pizzas and cookies and 20% off if I'll just come back and suckle on the fetid, septic teat of convenience carbohydrates. Don't they realise that each promise of stone baked goodness is just another twist of the blade?! This is torture! Arrrrgh!

<anakin>I hate them! I hate them so much!</anakin>

Phew. Sorry.

Also, have you noticed how hard it is to shop for books that Neil Gaiman hasn't written the introduction for? Seriously, it must be all he does.

And another thing... [snooooooooooooooooooore]

Days without incident: 2

They're remaking Total Recall. A movie that is not only a treasured part of my childhood (and the Governator's second best movie) but also got me reading Philip K. Dick for the first time. The hit rate on PKD movie conversions is about one in two and already having done the bastardised Hollywood version of We Can Remember It For You Wholesale perhaps this one will be ultra-faithful to the source like A Scanner Darkly was. Although that might actually be less good in this case.

Argh. Conflicted.

So, in summary... this could be amazing. Or it could be horrific.

I just don't have the words.

Well, apart from maybe "Quaaaaaiiiiiiiid."