Nomad Radio

Saskrotch: Chiptune Breaks Posted by Gargleman

Miss Anders… I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.

This new(ish) release on 8bitpeoples, the weblabel chiefs of chiptune, is by the delightfully named Saskrotch, who has given his EP the equally lovely name, I’ll Have You Naked By The End Of This ROM.

My favourite track is probably this one right here, which I don’t feel at all guilty about posting, because like all the best people, 8bitpeoples music is all free to download from their website.

Including the whole of this Saskrotch EP, plus 101 other 8bitpeoples releases, all of which come with artwork, which makes a lovely change in these digital/piratical days.

Saskritch – We Are High Speed (Nurrbody in this bitch get chipsy remix):

Saskrotch – We Are High Speed (Remix)

Sir Patrick Moore on Pop Posted by Gargleman

Oi! Patrick Moore!

Sir Patrick Moore, known as The Gamesmaster to many of my generation, has also secretly been carrying on as an astronomer and presenter of The Sky At Night since, oh, about ten minutes after the BBC was invented.

Anyway – between all of that video gaming and stargazing, it seems he doesn’t have a lot of time for modern music, as suggested by his review of Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole and from The Quietus:

Sir Patrick says: “I remember this one! I think it’s dreadful.”

And his review of Pink Floyd › Continue reading

FutureEverything: Zu & Kong – Islington Mill Posted by Gargleman

I didn't take this photo. I nicked it off Kong's MySpace page. I did take photos at the gig but my horrible temporary new phone - a Samsung SGH-U600 - has an awful camera and the photos are just grainy blurs.

Crazy-eyed, boiler-suited and masked up like B-movie psychos, Kong were a fine opening to the evening. Ear-savaging distorted punk and waves of feedback were accompanied by uncanny bouts of wide-eyed, paranoid staring, globs of spit coming out from behind the mask and the odd screamed threat of violence towards the audience. Delicious.

Held at the exquisitely grimy Islington Mill (exquisite, that is, so long as you don’t need to use the loo for having a poo), this was the opening pre-gig to Manchester’s unnecessarily-renamed FutureSonic festival (now called FutureEverything). And when I say pre-gig, I should add that the festival doesn’t actually start until May 12th 2010 – seven months away. So I’m excited, but I’ll have forgotten my excitement by next May.

Anyway, the headliners were Italian trio Zu, who like Kong were very drum-centric. Not as savage as Kong, their music was a blend of avant-garde jazz, math-rock and Rage Against The Machine, and they certainly got me and about six other geeks at the front dancing. ROCK!

Google search autocomplete thrills Posted by Gargleman

Am I extremely terrified of Chinese people? No. Except for Chairman Mao. He's got laser beams that come out of his eyes!

There’s plenty of fun to be had with Google search’s autocomplete feature.

There’s also the worrying discovery that enough people have searched for “is there anyway i can get this popular guy to get me pregnant” for Google to register it as a likely candidate for autocompleting the phrase “is there”.

Popular boys – consider yourselves warned…

This post was inspired by Geekologie, even though I actually had the idea when Google autocomplete first happened and then never got around to actually doing a post about it. Honest!

Is Ricky Gervais becoming Jim Carrey? Posted by Gargleman

"I hold myself in contempt!"

"I hold myself in contempt!"

Gervais’ new movie, The Invention of Lying, is a bit gash, apparently. Even Empire magazine gave it just one star, and their reviewing scheme seems to be:

1*= Awful
2* = Any basically functional film
3* = The death of narrative cinema and quite possibly the worst two hours of your life.
4* = Good
5* = An overlong bloated remake that’ll have your arse sore by halfway through, but that we gave five stars to anyway because the effects were pretty and we like the director.

Just imagine – Empire think that The Invention of Lying is two whole stars worse than Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

How can it possibly be that bad? By that rationale, The Invention of Lying must be a little bit like having your nuts roasted over an open fire › Continue reading