Mr Happys online journal

As part of our annual calendar @ Equator Halloween stands out as one of the days when things generally end up a bit messy. Everyone gets dressed up – paying a fine to charity if they do not indulge in the costume merriment et al.

Here is this years team shot – and yes its Scotland and its perishing

In some of my spare time I am a bit of a noisemonger. I know I’m getting old but rattling the hell out of a guitar induces a state of zen like calm in me.
I’ve always had a strange love of anything a little bit strange sounding – hence my love of flying saucer attack and much of this stuff which I’ve recently found voer at LastFm tagged as being dream pop.
Anyway to the echobender effects unit. I have no idea what it does or how it sounds but it looks lovely. It would appear to be made by a company called Casper Electronics. And it is a special limited edition of ten – I used to build limited editions of one using old schematics in magazines but not done it for years.
Click here for more info on the EchoBender effects unit.

For a long time I resisted the urge to buy Arab Strap records. Maybe its because they come from Falkirk, maybe its because they were always at the same clubs as me, maybe its because Aidan used to give me grief about the bands I liked as a kid. Anyway for whatever reason I may have been wrong about Arab Strap.
I’ve always liked Malcolm Middletons solo stuff, for some reason I could accept buying the solo records. But I recently bought a couple of Arab Strap albums and I’m convereted. I did see them live a couple of times but I was so pissed on each occassion I can’t remember much about it.
So here’s to Arab Strap – I’m still of the opinion that Rabid Lettuce should reform : dont know if they do but I hope they still want to rip someones face off with a fridge!!!

For a while I’ve been listening to the podcasts over at Not Quite Rocket Science – what a fantastic name for a blog.

Today I went over and needed some music to help get to the end of the day – and their tracklistings are pretty fab. I’m proud to say that Podcast 14 keeps up the high quality of previous podcasts.

I have to say that the cover of Beat Happening “Cast No Shadow” by Cub (nope I’ve never heard of them either) and “You Shook me all night long” covered by The Darlings was equally great.

So get over to them and have a listen. Maybe if we all petition them we can convince them to get onto a self hosted system of Wordpress and then we can make their blog so much user friendly – I hate the comment system on all Blogger blogs (pain in the ass).

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I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to find some decent new music that doesn’t suck. And worryingly I found some but it wasn’t what I thought I would be liking.
The latest offering from Britney Spears rocks. Its fantastic! OK she may be banged up in a mental hospital but all the great artists have been in some way loopy: Richie from the manics carved 4Real into his arm, Jimi Hendrix seemed to have a decent insight through the doors of perception and Charles Manson wasn’t exactly sane (but some of his tunes are great “You’re home is where you’re happy” is one of the greatest little pop songs ever)
Alongside this I heard The Acid House Kings – know nothing about them but they make every day feel like Sunday. Sundays are generally good days – relaxing, associate them with sun rises rather than sun sets. All in all a gem of a pop band.
Also I was going through old albums and started listening to “God Fodder” by Neds Atomic Dustbin – they would’ve been great if they hadn’t kinda called it a day. So here’s to all the new music that doesn’t suck – even if there is very very little of it around.

As I sit here typing away attempting to escape the real world I discover a gem on an indie music blog. Its the Ukulele orchestra of Great Briatin (no I didnt know we had one of these either) covering Miss Dy-na-mi-tee and it rocks.
Not Convinced? Have a listen here

I was going to rant about the death of ‘indie’ music but that wasn’t happy so today I thought I’d go on about how ‘indie’ music is still good.

In yesterday Metro, or maybe the day before, there was an interview with Underworld (‘Lager, lager, lager’ – and all that). Which praised the Internet for having reinvigorated msuci. They’re right in many ways: I know every two bit 14 year old pop-punk band and his father have generated a myspace page or some other wee site here and there and most are naff. but some are still great and invigorating.

One of my current favourites are the Skud Puppetz. A bunch of weedgie kids (they might be allowed to drink now) who do punk music – and do it quite well. they’ve one of the funniest, and best, drummers I’ves seen in a long time – think Keith Moon crossbread with Cousin It from the Addams family and you’re getting close.

Anyway further to that, on a musical tangent, if anyone wants even better Glasgow music there are some nice places to look. If you go to starvin’ marvins at lunch you’ll normally find Stuart from Belle and Sebastian buying his lunch – that Brit awards must not have bought the fame or money that beckoned and even doing the theme tune for Teachers didnt make taht much cash. Or get over to Teenage Fanclubs website and steal yourself some MP3’s of the ‘Fannies before they got old and put too many acoustic guitars on every track.

So yeah indie music aint dead – maybe dying and in need of ressusciatation. Maybe the weedgies will save us all

When I was a kid – dim and distant past I know – but compilation tapes were all the rage. Easy way to see if you were going to get on well with someone was to get them to make you a ‘tape’, or vice versa.
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