I'm starting my new year's resolution early - a return to Myspace. How I miss it...

Now follows a shameless advertisement. I hope you've all popped on your 'They Live' sunglasses...

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Top quality vintage and chic fare hand-picked by a highly reputable soul...

(alphabetically speaking…)

The Advisory Circle – Other Channels
The Alps – III
Ass – My get up and go just got up and went
John Baker – The John Baker Tapes Vol. 1 + 2
Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Dolores
Peter Broderick – Float
Peter Broderick – Home
Bronnt Industries Kapital – Haxan
Directing Hand – What Put The Blood
Foals – Antidotes
Michael Garrick Band – Home Stretch Blues (well, I first heard it this year…)
Gas – Nah Und Fern (compilation)
Jasper TX – Black Sleep
C Joynes – The Running Board
Loner Deluxe – Lost & Found / Must not sleep, must warn others
Stephen Mathieu – Radioland
The Owl Service – A Garland Of Song
Plinth & Textile Ranch – The rest I leave to the poor
Soccer Committee & Machinefabriek – Drawn
Cat Stevens – Harold & Maude Soundtrack (first proper release…)
Various artists – Nigeria Special – Modern Highlife 1970-6
Various artists – Sprigs Of Time – 78s from the EMI archive
V/VM – Twin Peaks
Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue / Bambu

A friend of mine is embarking on a journey that I'm sure many wouldn't envy. In a gargantuan feat, he intends to read and review, in order, the entire back catalogue of a single author.
Some may deride his fiction as 'Holiday Reading', acne-scarred adolescent fantasy or simply the basis of some horribly feeble film adaptations. But we know better don't we?
Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Just kidding.

I am of course referring to Stephen King. *stop sniggering at the back!*
I'm sure I'm not alone in having read a (perhaps unadvisably) large selection of his books as a pre-teen, lapping up the visceral horror and the intangible quality which keeps you turning page after page. So here it is - a re-evaluation of a much maligned author.

Whether you appreciate the books or not (you may find yourself surprised...) it is guaranteed to be a voyage of (re) discovery, entertainment and intelligent discourse. So do please take the time to visit, re-visit and comment.

Stephen King Reviewed


Oh and on a final Stephen King-related note, The Shawshank Redemption is a fatuous, mawkish, out and out feeble piece of melodrama. Not a classic.

To quote Rakim Allah "It's been a long time" (yes, I once wore baggy jeans and listened to Golden Age hip hop religiously...)

So anyway, if anyone still looks at my neglected pages I would like to direct you to a new photo-blog thingummyjig which aims to document the run-down, decaying and ever so romantic image of bygone times of the countryside. Or, if you will, a Tesco's trolley dumped in a stream. So send us your photos of dilapidated barns, rusting machinery and dead farmyard animals to the Facebook group below...

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=645430217&k=ZWFTZW5S426M51BIRE55TQ

Happy snappin'!

Ho ho ho! Get in the spirit by lending an ear to these Splendid Christmas Songs provided by the kindly folk at Rusted Rail.

All this week on BBC 4...

Ghost Stories For Christmas 2007

The hero is pursued to the accompaniment of gongs and cymbals by his previous captor.







Despite the cold and wet, the hero disrobes and covers himself with ash amongst much wailing and teeth-gnashing.



















After the persecution, a fiery pathway lights toward the summit...





As he passes the summit, the hill explodes in tungsten white.







The crowds disperse, perplexed, by flaming torchlight.







I still don't know what it was all about but it was a very beautiful slice of confusion. Half Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, half Sunno))) video, it was a hallucinogenic assault on the senses and pretty unforgettable.

"Bronze percussion, horns, pyrotechnics and the elements converge in an atmospheric journey across the ancient landscape of Hambledon Hill, weaving between the present day and the Neolithic past. Following a year of research, environmental art group Red Earth has created an equinox event marking the connection between contemporary and ancient societies and rediscovering Hambledon Hill as a space for meeting, celebration and ritual."

How could I resist? I'm still not sure if it really happened or not...





The start point of the procession...









The oddness begins atop the hill. A near whiteout at times with the mist makes it all the more dramatic...





The audience arrives.



And so too does the foolish 'hero' as he exchanges eerie wailing cries with the mysterious figures on the horizon...







Entrance to the 'enclosure'.









Like a scene from The Fog, a row of obscured figures appear over the hillside all playing a cacophony of atonal notes through brass instruments.







The man in white is lured by the haunting call of conch shells.



A crescendo of gongs sends him up the ladder...





Emerging on the other side, he is enslaved...

The Main Circle



























The Whispering Knights









What are the chances of The British Society of Dowsers turning up for their AGM?