At the risk of turning this into a reblogging site for My Favourite Band, I share with you the following – Nine Inch Nails with Dillinger Escape Plan doing what can only be described as a fucking amazing version of Wish, live at the Soundwave Festival in Perth, Western Oz.

As much as I enjoyed seeing NIN this year, I wish I had seen them do something as fantastically cool as this. Oh well, guess I should sell a kidney and go see them, Metallica Placebo and Faith No More in Austria.

I have the man-flu and I am at work. The combination of these two things has me down, down, down, down. To cheer myself up, I thought I would watch that Hard Copy episode with Trent Resnor (sic) faking his death.

The best thing about it is the sarcastic bearded reporter who can’t tell the difference between journalism and sarcasm. Nine Inch Noise? Classic writing. But not only is his writing amazing, his delivery and screen presence are terrific too. I can’t imagine what he bribed or blackmailed the producers with to get on-camera time. I don’t think I want to.

It probably involved hidden cameras.

No lights in the sky. Or power on the stage.

I have been away. Kinda. Not really. I think I found somewhere I want to be all the time and that is in the crowd being a part of something, being connected, being punched, being hugged, being pushed, being pulled, being there.

Two Thousand and Nine Inch Nails has come to an end. A bunch of shows, a couple of countries and a lifetime of fucking things up fixed memories.

Thank you, Mr Michael Trent Reznor.

Back when I was in school I used to be quite good at making short (yet crappy) animations. I did really well in my Media studies classes and I ended up studying film and drama at University (or College, for my American cousins).

I used to write, make and be involved in short film. I had a monthly short film night at one of the better indie clubs. I used to enjoy every aspect of films, from paying to see them, to talking about them, to reading up about every smallest trivial aspect of them.

Then it stopped being fun. Or so I thought.

Turns out I stopped being fun, because if I had still been fun I would have made the following short animation (which I cannot recommend anyone view):

P.S. The above is very not safe for work/school/home/anywhere.

Dear Gods, I am shallow. And highly self-interested.

Know why? When the world is falling apart and burning down around us, I allow myself to get upset about the cancellation of a car that hadn’t even been officially announced.

So, good bye what might have been the next Nissan Silvia, good bye.

The boys in DAAS used to have a little routine that involved Richard’s life being like a paddling pool. Richard joked that is was “shallow” but that you could always “deep end” on him.

Don’t try and depend on me, mine is full of piss.

I got a random Facebook email this week from this Clare girl asking, in the subject line, if she knew me.

I was going to bin it, because I pretty much have enough friends on Facebook without new unknown ones requesting the add. But I clicked on and read it without thinking, and it turned out she thought that her father was my Godfather and that her parents and my parents used to be the best of friends.

I had no idea I even had a Godfather, so I called up The Mother and asked her if she knew these people. She freaked out and told me I had to get their contact details as quickly as possible as she had been trying for years to get in touch with them!

Turns out they had been trying for years to get in touch with my folks, and in desperation and at the suggestion of a friend of theirs, they tried to find me instead (The Father used to work on some secret security stuff and was deliberately hard to track down), as they thought I would be of the right age to have an online life.

Thank God they didn’t find that hentai site I used to run.

Dear John,

Did you know that one part of the Super Furry Animals and an American producer called Boom Bip released an album of music inspired by you?

You didn’t? Well, they have called themselves Neon Neon and the album is called Stainless Style.

You should check it out. Here is the clip for one of the tracks about you:

Here is a picture I found of you and your car:

I must say I do think you should have persevered with the rotary engine, but regardless, the car will go down in history along with the GTO. Well done on both of those.

I got thoroughly confused the other day trying to explain to someone that Yaz were not Yazz but were Yazoo.

So, in order to have a single point of reference in the future, I present to you the Shallow Bay Guide to Bands That Vince Clarke Done Been In.

He started off in “No Romance in China” before forming “French Look” which then become “Composition of Sound” before finally becoming the slightly better known “Depeche Mode”. He quit after the release of The Mode’s Speak and Spell and went on to form “Yazoo” (who were known as “Yaz” in the United States due to their already being a “Yazoo” there) with the deep-voiced Alison Moyet, then he went on to the short lived “The Assembly” before creating the legendary synth-pop hit machine, “Erasure”.

Yazz, or Yasmina Evans as she was born, knew that the only way was up.

Here is some Yazoo/Yaz:

Here is some Erasure: 

Here is some Yazz (the obvious choice):

Here is the summary:

Yazoo is Yaz, but not Yazz who is Yasmina.

Here is the end.

P.S. Here is some non-Clarke Depeche Mode:

God, the weekend weather was just too much to bear bare. I spent yesterday sitting on a balcony drinking beer and plenty of water whilst I smoked up a few of my fathers cigars.

It was almost too hot to do anything else. So I didn’t. Which the poor souls in Victoria didn’t get a chance to do.

I don’t want to quote a count or anything or tell you that it’s the worse natural disaster to hit Australia, all I want to do is point you to the Salvation Army website and ask that you give some to them so they can give some more to others.