BETAMAXNOMATES

So, my first post in, like, ages. I’ve been busy. Out, about. Doing things, going places, meeting people - ‘let me buy you a drink’ here, ‘ooh, I love this song’ there, ‘help, I can’t feel my face’ sort of thing. Who has the time to blog these days? TV’s Zach Braff does, and he‘s a famous actor/unlikely sex symbol and stuff. Apparently I look a bit like Zach Braff. Someone told me so. Last night someone (random stranger) told me that I looked like Matthew Fox, the doctor from Lost. This is interesting, mainly because Zach Braff and Matthew Fox look absolutely nothing alike. And that I look nothing like either of them. Then again, according to this website I look like Andie MacDowell. Which is depressing on a level I never knew existed. Admittedly, the girl who compared me favourably with Matthew Fox was, at the time, merrily in the ‘Don’t See A Great Night Wasted’ stage of intoxication. She also tried to steal my glasses. And insisted that I was the tallest man in Ireland. I’m not, as it happens. I checked and it’s this guy - a man that's so tall his legs can’t support his frame and he has to use a wheelchair. Which brings him down to normal size. Which, in turn, calls in to question his standing - so to speak - as Ireland’s tallest man. I think I still win on a technicality. Also, in that picture he appears to be wearing some sort of joke shop-bought disguise - no doubt to avoid the inevitable groupies, grope-ies and 'how's-the-weather-up-there' merchants. I feel his pain - though obviously I can, y'know, walk and stuff.
But back to Braff. How sucky does his new movie look? Answer (in case you were wondering): ‘very’. I quite liked Garden State. It wasn’t perfect but as actor-turned-director vanity projects about twenty-something’s in existential crisis go it was refreshingly not-shit: well scripted and well acted by all involved, Peter Sarsgaard in particular. (The soundtrack, on the other hand - though loved by many - was beyond awful. Yes. Yes, it was. Moving on...). That’s why The Last Kiss looks so disappointing. Fametracker recently ran a feature speculating on what Braff’s future projects might have in store and it makes for hilarious yet depressingly convincing reading. I like him on Scrubs, and his blog is always enjoyable but he does push the whole ‘I’m not J.D. in real life: I introduced your girlfriend to The Shins’ thing a little too hard at times. There’s a picture of Braff there with moustachioed man of the moment (no, not that one, the other one): Borat. It’s a cute picture and one which is probably enough to cause indie chicks the world over to collectively cream their polka-dot panties. Speaking of the polka-dot bedecked, horn rimmed specs sporting brigade, they were out in force at The Pipettes gig last month. I like The Pipettes a lot and I think their album is one of the best I’ve heard this year but - for reasons outlined here - I do question their ‘artistic credibility’ somewhat (as appalling 'rockist' and 'post-post-modern' as that might sound). At worst, the band and their songs are just a cynical marketing exercise reinforcing the phallocentric male-dominated blah blah First Year Sociology blah. At best, they're neo-feminist icons of empowerment blah blah something Barbara Ellen wrote in The Observer mag blah. The way I see it, The Pipettes are what would step out of the door, bathed in dry ice, if the Sugababes went on Stars In Their Eyes as The Ronettes. (That's a good thing, by the way).

Anyway, is it raineen? I hadden’t nodissed. (My Andie MacDowell impression there... sheesh, tough crowd). No, it hasn’t been raining (much) but it has, I have noticed, been extremely fucking cold here. I was in France last week (and briefly, Barcelona) enjoying 20+ degree temperatures only to return to the frozen dogshit dildo I call home and contract flu symptoms literally within minutes of stepping off the plane. Fucking weather. And the Lemsip's no use, whatever way you cut it (halfway down the page for instructions). It’s possible though that my cold has more to do with the fact that, in the previous week, I consumed (probably) twice my own body weight in dairy produce, a food group to which I am, apparently, severely allergic - at least according to my doctor, a shady practitioner of the junk science we call 'Western medicine'. You know that hospitals kill more people than they save, right? And that AIDS was something invented by a Polish doctor in 1957? It's amazing what you can learn off the Internets. Like this thing, which identified the author of nearly all my recent blog entries as female. That might help to explain why this is the second mammary-themed item title in a row: some hopelessly misguided attempt to ‘butch up’ my blog. The colour scheme has to go anyway - pink's been my least favourite so far. Also I'm now living with two women (the sitcom possibilities of this are inescapable. One guy: two girls - one of whom is German! East German! This thing writes itself!).

Finally, here's some new(ish) albums we should buy. First, Food And Liquor by Lupe Fiasco. Leaving all the 'conscious MC', ‘intelligent hip-hop’ foofarah aside, Fiasco’s made a quality album with some suitably ‘tight’ rhymes and indubitably ‘sick’ beats. Even the 'rap's-just-people-talking'-crowd will find something to love here (note: 'crossover appeal'). Squarepusher has a new album out too: I downloaded it months ago when it leaked but only got around to listening to it recently. Musically there's no surprises here - it's your typical 'pusher - but what is surprising is the general level of consistency on display. Pretty much every track here's a keeper - the obvious standouts being 'Hello Meow' and the utterly demented 'The Modern Bass Guitar', the epitome of Music Your Parents Just Wouldn't Understand. Check out Fujiya And Miyagi as well, a bunch of Krautrock revivalists from Brighton with a Japanese name and a bizarre fixation with Asian culture. Trust me, they’re a lot better than that pissweak description makes them sound.
Finally finally, speaking as the tallest (and therefore) greatest man in Ireland I feel it behoves me to engage in some flagrant self-promotion. I finally got around to properly updating the BETAMAXNOMATES MySpace Abomination with words and colours and links and stuff. And today I finished a new mix - Betamax Bootymix #2 - which you can download here. Tracklisting follows ‘after the jump’. Peace out.

Susanna And The Magical Orchestra - Enjoy The Silence
Dead Disco - The Treatment (Metronomy Remix)
Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence (Richard X Remix)
Paula Abdul - Straight Up
Zombie Nation - Black Toys
Luke Vibert - Ce Porte (Remix)
Lo-Fi-FNK - Change Channel (Jitset Remix)
Beyonce - Ring The Alarm (Acapella)
Teki Latex - Disco Dance With You (Spank Rock Remix) feat. Amanda Blank
Teki Latex - Disco Dance With You (Para One Remix)
Les Rhythms Digitales - Disco To Disco
Simian Mobile Disco - Tits And Acid
Rob Base And DJ EZ Rock - It Takes Two
Bryan Ferry - Let's Stick Together
MSTRKRFT - Work On You
Nelly Furtado - No Hay Igual (Acapella)
Soulwax - Another Excuse (DFA Remix)
Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation (Extended Dance Mix)
Ascii Disco - Dirty! Filthy!
Duran Duran - All She Wants Is
The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight (Ben Liebrand DMC Remix)
Para One - Dundun-dun (MSTRKRFT Remix)
Nelly Furtado - Promiscious Girl (Acapella) feat. Timbaland
Shampoo - Trouble
CSS - Superafim
Coldplay - Trouble
Metronomy - Trick Or Treatz (South Central Remix)
ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man
Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man (Acapella)
We Are Wolves - Vosotros, Monstruos
Shinobu - T-T-T-Trepanning