Lollards in the high church of low culture
As you might know if you ve been on Bluesky, I m counting down EVERY COMICS EVENT* *(that I ve read) from worst to best and writing a little paragraph on each. I might Do Something with all this when it s finished but for now […]
This is a post in Discourse 2000, the year-by-year, story-by-story look at 2000AD. Contains spoilers for Ant Wars. WHICH THRILL?: The folly of human science unleashes a horde of giant ants can a Brazilian army Captain and an indigenous Ama[…]
This is a part of Discourse 2000, a year-by-year, story-by-story look at 2000AD. Contains spoilers for Death Planet. WHICH THRILL?: A colony ship crashes on an extremely hostile planet. Can Captain Lorna Varn keep the survivors safe? ANOTHER GI[…]
This is part of Discourse 2000, a year-by-year, story-by-story blog about 2000AD. Contains spoilers for Judge Dredd The Cursed Earth. Which Thrill?: Future lawman Judge Dredd is sent on a mercy mission across a radioactive wasteland to br[…]
Tuesday, 30th December 2025 is the 25th (sort of) Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl and we have decided to make a rare foray out of Zone 1 to HACKNEY. Twenty Five years too late to actively gentrify it, perhaps we undo some of that dama[…]
This is an entry in my year-by-year, story-by-story series about 2000AD, Discourse 2000. Contains spoilers (I guess) for the solo Walter strips and perhaps other things. Which Thrill?: Walter is a robot domestic servant of Judge Dredd with an inte[…]
This is an entry in Discourse 2000, my story-by-story, year-by-year look at 2000AD. Contains spoilers for both MACH 1 and MACH Zero. Which Thrills? MACH 1 is the final adventures of super-spy John Probe. MACH Zero is the story of a failed prototyp[…]
This is an entry in Discourse 2000, my year-by-year, story-by-story analysis of 2000AD strips. Contains spoilers for Colony Earth! Which Thrill? A hard-bitten Naval Commander battles an alien invasion, almost single-handedly. If that doesn t[…]
This is a post in the Discourse 2000 series, looking at 2000AD story by story, year by year. Which Thrill? A daredevil gets into a car accident and ends up with transparent skin. Hijinks ensue. GOT A HEADFUL OF IDEAS AND IT S DRIVING ME I[…]
This is a post in the series Discourse 2000, exploring 2000AD year by year and story by story. It contains spoilers for Dan Dare s run in the comic. Which Thrill? Dan Dare boldly goes where no pilot of the future has gone before, exploring t[…]
Previously on Discourse 2000: After successfully helping launch war comic Battle, editor Pat Mills had the opportunity to launch a new kind of boys’ comic at publishers IPC Action, a title which turned the violence and grittiness of typical[…]
My attitude to creative writing projects is best contextualised by misquoting Zapp Brannigan’s take on pick-up lines: write as many of them as you can, as fast as you can. I know this is probably unwise, yet I feel compelled to start a project goin[…]
Omar Rodríguez-López’s most recent solo album Is It the Clouds? dropped January 2024 (aptly on the Clouds Hill label) and was the first to follow 2016-17’s epic release schedule. While it’s not quite a traditional concept album, themes of gri[…]
As much as this idea totally whips, sadly, Sworn Virgins isn’t a concept album centred around the priestesses of Vesta, although it did inspire me to draft a fantasy longlist of musicians I’d like to see approach such a project.* As the very firs[…]
Hooray for me! Also several others, but it’s hard to get excited about that. Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio, the long-awaited Mars Volta double album I totally manifested is here at last, and it is a delightful compendium of traditional Puerto Ric[…]
The Jeopardy! category is “Before and After”: ANSWER: They’ll use semiconductor technology to amass an army for hire, if the remuneration is right. QUESTION: Who are Solid State Mercenaries? Why yes, I have been sitting on that one for near[…]
I’m inclined to think of Omar Rodriguez as the first official ORL solo record, even though that’s not technically correct. And yet, my predilection for proving myself to be the best kind of correct is overridden when I consider a couple of fact[…]
Labelling music as ‘psychedelic’ is about as useful as labelling it as ‘progressive’. Both are wildly subjective terms, and both are frequently deployed when defining Omar Rodríguez-López’s extensive catalogue. I’d like to see a handy […]
Friends, this year is going to be a doozy, one which will require mental fortitude on par with the strength of Hercules combined with the flexibility of Gumby. And yet there’s only much loin-girding a person can reasonably do, so instead I’m dete[…]
In the ancient times, when I was old enough to know better but young enough to believe it didn’t matter, when LiveJournal was the central focus of my socialisation, at this time of year my reading feed was dominated by a popular end-of-year survey.[…]
Sunday, 29th December 2024I marks the 25th anniversary of the first Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl and so we are heading to Southwark to sample some pubs with fascinating architecture, maybe have a drink (alcohol optional) and then a[…]
Last year I wrote up some trends in the way British people listen to Christmas music now as expressed via the medium of the streaming-era Christmas charts, which offer a fairly accurate barometer of passive festive listening. So what happe[…]
This is not my best-loved time of year: it’s cold, dark and tainted by too many unhappy holiday memories. All the decorations remind me of when I was very young, and how I dreaded the annual construction of our plastic fir tree, anticipating my dad[…]
The UncoolTwo50 is over well, the voting phase is but the posting continues. These are the final 10 near-misses. 60. PUBLIC ENEMY “By The Time I Get To Arizona” (1991) I learned too late that this record is NOT[…]
23. MYLENE FARMER “Libertine” (1985) Events overtook me they overtook everyone and two weeks ago, when I posted this song to Bluesky, seems a very long time indeed. I’ll try to reconstruct this ancient era. W[…]
If I really wanted to and I don’t I could fall down a rabbit hole reading various essays and blog posts about the death of the album. But for the sake of simplicity (and laziness), let’s say the first knell sounded shortly after t[…]
Re-rewind! Pausing midway through the main blurbs to go back and fill in another 10 of the nearly-made-its 70. ORLANDO “Just For A Second” (1996) We’re now into the section of tracks which had a real, honest-to-goodne[…]
27. THE WATERBOYS “Church Not Made With Hands” (1984) This feels, to me anyway, like my most idiosyncratic choice a 1984 single that’s very very much in their “The Big Music” phase, which is neither an ethos or a so[…]
31. ERIC B AND RAKIM “Paid In Full” (1987) It’s been heartening to see a lot of people picking this, though opinion has been fairly evenly split as to whether the original album cut or the Coldcut “7 Minutes Of Madness” rem[…]
35. HAPPY MONDAYS “Kinky Afro” (1990) At the suggestion of Bluesky’s own Jel I have been allotting each song in my UncoolTwo50 list a BAGGY RATING, indicating how they align with the most important (to me) micro-scene of my tee[…]
39. THE KLF “Last Train To Trancentral” (1991) I think the mystique of the KLF had probably gone about as far as it could once you have a full length book treating the group as essentially a magical working you’re runni[…]
42. SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES Cities In Dust (1986) One of the best singles artists of the early 80s “Fireworks”, “Melt”, “Slowdive”, “Swimming Horses”, “Spellbound”. Like a lot of great sing[…]
45. PRINCE “Alphabet St” (1988) In the pop polls, Prince was nominated well over 30 times, something no other artist came near. He won one poll LP closers, with “Purple Rain” and came second in Soundtracks (�[…]
Se Dice Bisonte, No Bùfalo shares many similarities with A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume I in that both are atmospheric, mostly instrumental filmic albums. However, unlike the latter, Se Dice isn’t technically a soundtrack; the liner notes a[…]
48. MOBB DEEP Shook Ones Pt II (1995) The UncoolTwo50 challenge period covers the time roughly speaking, 1989 to 1996 when I took a lot of my cues about music and its quality from the weekly music press.[…]
49. QUAD CITY DJ S C mon N Ride It (The Train) (1996) There was a bit of chat the other day when Pitchfork released its list of Top Tracks Of The 2020s So Far; as is often the way it was sparked by th[…]
50. THE AUTEURS The Rubettes (1999) This song is now as old as “Sugar Baby Love” by The Rubettes was when Luke Haines borrowed its hook for “The Rubettes”. It’s been squatting in my head for those 25 years; it[…]
A third instalment of tracks which didn t make my #UncoolTwo50 list which starts TOMORROW; there is still time to enter, all you need is a list of 50 singles from 1977-1999. In fact what you could do is take the 30 I ve put up so […]
A second set of songs from the #UncoolTwo50 project, launching on Monday night/Tuesday on Bluesky have you finalised your 50 tracks yet? This set is still in the nearly-made-it category, though we re starting to see things[…]
The #UncoolTwo50 is a simple exercise of daunting scope. Pick your 50 favourite singles from 1977 to 1999 (and then list them as part of the public challenge, which is happening on Bluesky from October 1st). I don’t know if these are the best ever […]
This is the final entry in Season 1 of Discourse 2000, a story-by-story look at 2000AD. Contains spoilers! WHICH THRILL? The surviving cast of Harlem Heroes return, forming a team to compete in the new, even more violent sport of Inferno. The f[…]
This is part of Discourse 2000, a story-by-story (in this case lots of little stories) exploration of 2000AD. Contains spoilers for every Future Shock! WHICH THRILL? Future Shocks are short (1-4 page usually) science fiction stories which pad out […]
This is part of Discourse 2000, a story-by-story exploration of UK weekly comic 2000AD. Contains spoilers! WHICH THRILL?: Tharg The Mighty is the alien editor of 2000AD, who occasionally takes time out from his work running the Galaxy s Grea[…]
This is part of Discourse 2000, a story-by-story exploration of the weekly comic 2000AD. Includes spoilers! WHICH THRILL?: Gigantic polar bear Shako gets unwittingly involved in the Cold War when a secret CIA project gets lodged in his stomach. […]
Readers first sight of Dredd, bike cannons blazing. This is part of Discourse 2000, a story-by-story look at the weekly 2000AD comic. Expect spoilers for stories covered! WHICH THRILL? In the year 2099, due process is a thing of the past[…]
A post in the Discourse 2000 series, covering 2000AD story-by-story. Will include spoilers! WHICH THRILL? Aeroball is a jet-pack fuelled airborne contact sport and Harlem Heroes are the best team in the world. When most of the squad is killed […]
This is another episode of DISCOURSE 2000, my story-by-story blog about British comic 2000AD. It contains spoilers for this and other strips. WHICH THRILL? The power of computerised acupuncture and a computer in his brain turns British secret […]
Despite being six years into this project, I have yet to review A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume One, Omar Rodríguez-López’s debut solo album, which was released twenty years ago today (no Sergeant references: denied). Sadly, neither the fil[…]
This is a part of Discourse 2000, a blog looking at 2000AD story-by-story. It will include spoilers for all stories under discussion. WHICH THRILL? 23rd Century cowboys head back to the Cretaceous to solve world hunger by farming dinosaurs. A lot […]
This is a part of Discourse 2000, a blog looking at 2000AD story-by-story. It will include spoilers for all stories under discussion. WHICH THRILL? It s 1999 and Britain has been invaded by the Volgan Republic of Asia. Bill Savage, a lo[…]