The Null Device
2003/1/22
Whitehouse spokesman Tony "the accent" Blair puts aside all pretense of wishing to avoid war in Iraq, and says that there is no way out for Saddam Hussein; war is inevitable, and use of nuclear weapons is on the table. Meanwhile, the chorus of celebrity opposition to the war has been growing , with Damon Albarn adding his voice to the opposition; wonder if this means that Liam Gallagher will speak out in support of our boys in the gulf and/or encourage someone to take a baseball bat to that little Albarn artfag.
(In the interests of fairness, I'd insert a link to the Onion's "Handlers Desperate To Prevent Tara Reid Political Awakening" story from last year, but it's no longer online: instead, here's a link to my link to it last year.)
An article from the Age about the resurgence of rock in the trendy clubbing precinct of Prahran. Venues best known for more types of house music than you probably knew existed are now putting on rock bands, because rock patrons drink more.
Of course, in the super-stylised $80-logo-T-shirt heartland of Prahrahran, the rock that's displacing some of the dance music is, as you might expect, the stylised back-to-basics rawk of The Strokes/Vines/Datsuns/whatever. There it's another label to wear; sort of like the "bogan rock nights" some club there had a while ago, where all the thirtysomething designers and advertising types put on their $120 designer-label flannelette shirts and went to get shitfaced to some Ackadacka with their fellow young professionals.
A good interview with Jason Sweeney (of Sweet William, PBXO and Simpático fame, and a really cool guy too), where he talks about music scenes in Adelaide, Melbourne and overseas, influences and various other stuff.
When I first heard the Simpatico EP, Ill admit, I thought it did sound British. Surprisingly though Jasons main influences are Australian bands, and this reinforces the fact that there are many great Australian groups that the British simply are not exposed to.
(ta, Naomi!)
Via Neil Gaiman's blog (where else?), a page on Gaiman, the Welsh colony in Patagonia. I wonder how much of the original Welsh culture there remains there, and to what extent it has been assimilated into Argentina?
A scholarly work by two Russian mathematicians positing a new chronology for British and European history, and seemingly proving that Britain didn't exist, and all references to it map to places in eastern Europe and the Balkans. "London" referred to either Constantinople or a Bulgarian town named Tyrnovo, England (or Albion) was Albania, Scotland was Scythia, the Welsh were Turks, and the Norman Conquest was actually a reference to fourth crusade and the conquest of Constantinople. The conspiracy of cartographers strikes again, so it seems.
(If this is true, and these things didn't happen in British history, then what did? Perhaps the Royal Family is actually descended from Odin (as their official genealogy is said to claim), or perhaps the Queen is a giant lizard?) (via Psychoceramics)